


Howling Outside Your Door

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alpha Kurosaki Ichigo, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Biting, Consensual Sex, Everybody is intersex because ABO, Group Sex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multi, Not Epilogue Compliant, Omega Grimmjow Jaegerjaques, Polyamory, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:15:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23949013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: There's a barrier around the house, but it's not made to stop an Espada.It's more of a notice-me-not, he thinks, pressing his bloody hand to it -- leaning too hard into it when his knee buckles under Yylfordt's negligible weight. It bows under the push of his hand and then lets him slide through up to the elbow; the spiritual pressure it's holding back rushes in prickles of heat against his palm.It's made to hide Kurosaki's resting place from prowling hollows.Yeah. Yeah, that's... Real close to perfect.If.Perfect, if."In," he hisses, reaching out to snatch Di Roy's thin wrist, yanking him through under a shielding burst of reiatsu he doesn't have to spare. He doesn't need to spare it, not anymore; either they're gonna be okay or they're gonna be left stranded to die, there's no alternatives.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/His fraccion, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo/Grimmjow's fraccion
Comments: 205
Kudos: 771





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This should not be a long fic as the plot is mostly hurt/comfort/porn. Posting the beginning because I can't bear to sit on it any longer but it's not complete yet either. XD;;;
> 
> (btw all these fine ABO peeps are what we would see as intersex. Everyone has a peen and a vajayjay. EVERYONE. a/b/o is a hormonal and reproductive thing; male/female is mostly a gender thing.)

There's a barrier around the house, but it's not made to stop an Espada.

It's more of a notice-me-not, he thinks, pressing his bloody hand to it -- leaning too hard into it when his knee buckles under Yylfordt's negligible weight. It bows under the push of his hand and then lets him slide through up to the elbow; the spiritual pressure it's holding back rushes in prickles of heat against his palm. 

It's made to hide Kurosaki's resting place from prowling hollows.

Yeah. Yeah, that's... Real close to perfect.

_If_. Perfect, if. 

Gritting his teeth, Grimmjow shoves through; stops, half-in, half-out. Inside the barrier is Kurosaki, a sleeping leviathan muffled in flesh; but others, too, two or three weaker sparks -- and a bigger one that ignites, feeling him, that stirs and that's gonna chase them right out if he doesn't get to Kurosaki first.

" _In_ ," he hisses, reaching out to snatch Di Roy's thin wrist, yanking him through under a shielding burst of reiatsu he doesn't have to spare. He doesn't need to spare it, not anymore; either they're gonna be okay or they're gonna be left stranded to die, there's no alternatives. He grabs Edrad next, by the shoulder -- it's the broken arm, but Edrad doesn't even flinch, hard-eyed and jaw tight. Grimmjow sends him ahead, too; then Nakeem last, every second it takes howling at himself that it was a stupid move, that he should have left Edrad for last to keep watch. Nakeem is carrying Shawlong, they're sitting ducks. If Shawlong wakes hurt and under fire he'll fucking eat Nakeem, just bite down; he's too weakened to think first. And Nakeem's the calmest of them, the most placid, but he'll still fight back, and then--

Then they're all through the barrier. Clumped together in the air a few feet over a strip of grass, as if the nearby wall would shield them worth a damn; Di Roy is twitching, head swiveling, like he wants to pace around the perimeter, lip curled up to bare his fucking piano teeth.

Grimmjow smacks him in the bone helmet, and then shrugs Yylfordt off his back.

"Hey--" Yylfordt yelps, quickly chokes it back. He grabs for the wall of the house, long hair tumbling all over his face and looking like he wants to swear a blue streak, but Grimmjow has no more time for that than he has for Di Roy's useless protect-mine instincts.

It'd be fucking hilarious to pit him against Kurosaki, if Grimmjow was in any mood to be entertained.

"Here?" Edrad asks under his breath, sizing up the boring little human house with a quick glance and then looking tensely toward whatever it is in there that just awakened.

They're out of time.

Grimmjow phases his hand through the window pane -- it's not easy, with how densely packed his body is; too much reiatsu to make like a baby hollow and wisp through -- and unlocks it from the inside.

Somewhere past the corner, a door opens. 

They jostle each other, jumping in too close together, Edrad and Nakeem too massive to easily pass through even on their own. Yylfordt trips on the edge of the window and hops one-footed onto the mattress underneath; it bounces under his weight. Grimmjow yanks him off by the elbow, swings him to safety behind him; slams the window closed and then under him Kurosaki sits up in a leap.

Grimmjow comes _this close_ to clocking him in the jaw out of pure reflex.

At the last instant he doesn't, just opens his fist and shoves him back down instead, palm spread out across the keel of his ribs. The mattress bounces again.

"What the _fuck!_ " Kurosaki screeches, and punches up.

Grimmjow is too tired to dodge and yet the only thing it does is knock his head back hard, snap his teeth closed. He doesn't go flying. Growling a warning -- his fucking ribs ache enough already -- he shoves back again. 

Then he lets go, steps back. It burns like acid in his throat, how much he hates giving up an advantage like that when he's as fucked up as he is, but he does it. He lets Kurosaki go and gives him space.

As much space as he can in this tiny fucking room, at least, with two behemoths pressed in the corners and Yylfordt halfway swooned across a desk, legs stretched out.

Di Roy is growling see-saw under his breath as he crowds against Grimmjow's back like he's working himself up to going around him and pouncing. Grimmjow elbows back without looking. Kurosaki is up in a crouch on the mattress, an ankle still tangled in blankets, back pressed to the edge of the window; his eyes flit around, taking all of them in.

He doesn't get his sword. Grimmjow can't even _see_ his sword, not in arm's reach and not anywhere in the room, and for a moment that baffles him.

Kurosaki is trying to edge toward the desk. Huh. It's probably somewhere over there, then. He can't see it and he _should_ , huge as it is, but.

Yylfordt isn't gonna be able to get out of the way, so Grimmjow moves slowly to that side to cut off his access, knowing that might well get taken badly. Kurosaki stops moving, staring hard at him.

"What the fuck," he repeats, still tense but less high-pitched, and he squints. "Who--"

"I need a favor," Grimmjow spits out, and forces his fists open against his thighs, nowhere near Pantera's grip.

For a second or three there's no noise in the room apart from deep, forcefully slow breathing.

"... Um, okay, I'm gonna need someone to turn on a lamp," Kurosaki says in a weird tone, "because that sure as shit sounded like Grimmjow, only it's saying stuff Grimmjow would probably rather cut off his own dick than say."

Grimmjow growls an irritated warning -- fucking Kurosaki, never fucking taking him seriously. He makes himself breathe out through his nose. "Yylfordt. Lamp. On your left."

"How the hell does it -- oh, yeah." A click and it turns on, blinding just about everyone. Grimmjow watches Kurosaki through his lashes even while he's a lightless black blob on a bright golden field. 

"... I... _don't_ know you," Kurosaki says slowly, staring at Yylfordt for a moment. Yylfordt watches him back, narrow-eyed and wary but his hands pointedly on the edge of the desk, white-knuckled with tension.

"How about _me_ , huh?"

\--Fuck. Di Roy went around him, dodged quick and nasty, and now he's edging up to the bed with his shoulders tense like bricks, like that'll make them seem bigger. Less alpha posturing than advancing on a potential meal-threat, but the way he went and put himself between Kurosaki and Grimmjow is clear enough.

Which, no. He grabs Di Roy by the bandaged part of his mask and yanks him backwards and down onto his ass.

"Hey, you're -- whoa!" Kurosaki moves to the edge of the mattress, puts one foot on the ground, leaning forward like he's not sure if he wants to loom over Di Roy's sprawled body or stay back from Grimmjow. He glances up at Grimmjow, frowning; stands, straightens up, shoulders squared. "Okay, you didn't have to do that, but thanks, I guess."

Another look at Di Roy and his frown turns more baffled. 

"Aren't you the guy that Rukia... Aren't you _dead_?"

"It's a _long_ fucking story that we'll tell you at _leisure_ , Kurosaki, only I still need a fucking favor before _whoever that is lurking behind the door decides to jump in_."

He's already being way too agreeable as it is -- is he that sure of his power? Grimmjow guesses that when you have taken down an actual demigod you can probably feel secure about sleeping weaponless and having your den invaded by potentially hungry hollows, but _fuck_. It's humiliating.

Kurosaki blinks at the door, stares sightlessly for a second. "Oh, that's probably my dad. Dad?"

Grimmjow stiffens despite himself, thinking about someone else walking inside this tinderbox of a room -- someone he doesn't know. Someone who's stronger than he is right now. 

" _Son, you good?_ "

"It's okay, we're talking." Kurosaki blinks, frowns at Grimmjow, then at the rest of them; he sees his eyes flitting from exposed injury to bruise to suspicious patch of blood. "Uh, probably stay out for now, we don't have enough space for your gorilla bod. But if you could get out bandages and stuff?"

A brief pause -- too brief, did he think it through at all? -- and the man on the other side of the door says " _Alright. Ten minutes_."

Grimmjow doesn't think any of them even breathe out until the stairs start to creak.

Kurosaki shifts his weight, crossing his arms; Grimmjow stares at him, words gone for a minute. Where to even start.

"You sure?" Edrad eventually says, quietly.

"Yeah, he doesn't even feel that strong!"

Grimmjow hisses at Di Roy, the fronting, lying little shit. Being in this house feels like being in Aizen's fucking throne room from the ambient reishi alone. _Not that strong_. Hah. "He's in a fucking _gigai_."

"Actually I'm in my fucking body," Ichigo replies drolly, and crosses his arms a little higher.

Ugh. "Same thing," Grimmjow snaps back, and slaps Di Roy on the back of the head as he was straightening up, rolling onto the balls of his feet like he thinks it's gonna impress anyone if he pretends to be two inches taller. "And yeah," he throws over his shoulder, at frowning Edrad and quiet-and-drained Nakeem and broken-legged, bristling Yylfordt and even unconscious Shawlong, "I _am_ sure it's not a democracy, so shut the fuck up."

"... Am I included in the shut the fuck up, or...?"

Grimmjow's eyelids twitch, but he forces himself to breathe it out. "For once in your life, probably not." A sharp inhale. "Can we sleep here?"

He has run through a dozen permutations of this sentence and it ends up four words long and already too close to begging -- asking for shit you need is giving other people the power to deny it to you and it's his policy not to ever allow that to happen. But what the fuck else is he gonna do, force him? The reason -- the bitter, stark reason he's even here in the first place is he _can't_ force Kurosaki, _and neither can anybody else_.

"What -- that's it?" Kurosaki blinks, crossed arms loosening. "Just -- you guys need to crash?"

He squints suspiciously at Grimmjow for a minute.

"Who's after you?"

Okay, that's... That's gonna be the deciding point.

"The shinigami," he says, and waits to be told to fuck right off. For all the allies he's made since then, Kurosaki's allegiance was to the shinigami first.

"... Which ones? All of them? Why?"

"Some painted fuck had my fucking fracción in his torture basement so I blew up the whole block, alright?" Ugh. He rakes a hand through his hair. "Now we've got about seven squads on our asses. Tried Hueco Mundo but they keep tracking us, and Harribel will put us down before she allows me to give them an excuse to follow us into Las Noches, so that's out."

He wants to pace his frustration but there's no space in here, he's too sore, too tired, his fucking knee aches and also Di Roy is like a fucking toddler that needs to constantly be kept away from the hot stove via the barrier of Grimmjow's own body. Damn but he _should_ let him at Kurosaki; maybe that'll cool his head.

But if he gets knocked out Grimmjow will have to carry him too. 

The look on Kurosaki's face is really weird. Like 'what the fuck,' but in italics and a fancy font.

"Mayuri? Captain Mad Science?"

Grimmjow gives a dry shrug.

"That was the name we overheard," Edrad says, watching Kurosaki with wary stillness. "He didn't really introduce himself to us."

Kurosaki gives Edrad a wide-eyed look right back. "Holy shit, are you guys sure you're not incubating terrifying gut-melting viruses right now?"

"Turns out you throw up all kinds of interesting things when you shock yourself hard enough to stop your heart," Yylfordt says, and smiles like there's a knife between his teeth. "Black goop and worms and the like. It was pretty festive!"

"... _Holy_ shit. You guys _fried the Mayuri out of you_."

He's impressed now -- also a little sick. Grimmjow relaxes a bit. That's not the look of someone who's about to tell them he still sides with the painted freak. (If the freak is even still alive. Grimmjow hit him with the biggest blast he had in him but he didn't really have time to stop and make sure.)

"Been testing shit -- Nelliel helped, I guess -- they're tracking us by reiatsu somehow, ain't no way she can hide _me_ but when my guys were close to her everyone just passed them right by, going after me. But we know they're still tracking them too, they'll ignore other hollows and still go after them if they're not around an Espada, so scattering doesn't help either. Can we just fucking -- crash on your floor or something." 

Kurosaki blinks his dumb brown eyes dumbly, and then nods a little. 

"Yeah, okay."

... Just like that? 

Grimmjow blinks back. Just like that, really? ' _Yeah, okay_.'

"Only not in my bedroom because I don't think I have enough floor for everyone." He steps away from the bed, body turned a little so he's not facing Grimmjow so challengingly anymore -- like he'll just slide around him, casual and unconcerned with a hollow in his personal space -- an almost-enemy, not even a little bit his pack. "Come on, let's go downstairs. Does anyone need help with the stairs?"

"... Di Roy, get Yylfordt." He follows Kurosaki out of the room first, a hand on his sword, just in case. 

(His knee hurts worse somehow just from knowing he might shortly be able to stop using it for a bit.)

There's Kurosaki's father down there, he can feel him. The guy might not agree. He might say he agrees and then... Not. His power feels so purely shinigami, it gets Grimmjow's hackles up.

Down the stairs is a wider room, but Grimmjow probably got too used to Las Noches' empty acres of random white dining halls and endless corridors because it still feels crammed full with furniture and trinkets. A counter, and a table and chairs, and a corner couch right in the middle, cutting the room into quarters; there's no straight path to anywhere. He doesn't like it. It's not like the walls would stop any of them if they really needed out, but... 

"They're on the run from Mayuri," his Kurosaki tells the older Kurosaki as he hops down the last steps. "Or maybe people angry that they blew up Mayuri. Think Urahara is still up and can tell us what's going on over there?"

Older Kurosaki gives a slow, thoughtful blink, then eyes Grimmjow over his son's head, gives an odd little smile.

"First I think we should tell your guests that I'm a Soul Society deserter and not in a position to snitch on them." He grins, bright and meaningless. "Faked my own death and everything! The few people who know better are pretending they don't, because if they did they'd have to court-martial me and have me executed, and then my darling son would probably burn down the whole of the Seireitei around their ears."

Kurosaki snorts. "Don't flatter yourself. I'd just bribe Kyouraku-san with your fancy bourbon. I don't know why you buy that shit, you don't even like the taste."

"Ah, but I look manly with a glass in hand."

"Mm-hm. Old goat boozing up alone in the dark. _Virile_."

It occurs to Grimmjow that Kurosaki Senior is not an omega -- that he _didn't_ birth his Kurosaki and isn't keeping him in the nest because of over-attachment and long-standing coddling habits. This sniping is some kind of really subdued alpha posturing.

Weird as fuck. Kurosaki can topple demi-gods, but he still lives with his sire. For a second Grimmjow starts to -- not _freak out_ , but think about the fact that maybe Younger Kurosaki has no real say in what goes on under his father's roof; but then he breathes, reminds himself the man hasn't indicated anything about that, about wanting them gone or even about asserting his authority over his son.

Their pack dynamics are _pretty weird_ , is what he's saying.

Maybe he likes having help protecting the younger ones. Who knows.

"I'm a doctor," the man adds casually, aligning rolls of bandages and threads and odd little bags on the table. "Does anyone want me to look at... particularly big ouchies?"

His Kurosaki snorts, walking up to the table and looking over the things there. " _Ouchies_. You gonna offer them pokémon band-aids too?" he mutters in a tone that says he's also rolling his eyes. 

Grimmjow has finally stepped off the staircase but he and his fracción are still gathered over there. There's a corridor nearby; might make for a good escape route, if it's not a dead end.

Every single wall would make for a good escape route, he reminds himself, and stalks through the gap between couch and counter to join them, shoulders back and chin up. 

"Last doctor who touched them was that painted fuck," he says -- making his voice casual, as non-hostile as he can, in case the guy was actually sincere about the offer. Who even knows. Kurosaki must have gotten it from _somewhere_. "So. No."

"Hm." 

The way he scans Grimmjow's people has his hackles up all over again, but Grimmjow doesn't step in between them to block the guy's angle of view. 

"You guys know how to set a broken bone?" 

Grimmjow grunts noncommittally, tilts his head back toward his people without looking away from the older Kurosaki. 

"I've done it," Nakeem says. Oh, right. Yeah. Grimmjow did break Shawlong's arms that one time. Freshly-made arrancar, and he hadn't been used to calibrating his sword swings, and he and Shawlong had agreed it was better if he tested himself on the strongest of his fracción first. It had been... Maybe not the best plan. 

Then again what would hitting rocks or poor Espada-less weaklings have taught him, either.

"Alright." The man straightens up, sticks his thumbs in the belt of his robe. "At worst Ichigo can help with breaks and dislocations, he's had the training. But he doesn't know any healing kido. If it was drugs that knocked this one out then he may or may not sleep it off and be fine -- I'm not going to lie and say I can fix anything Mayuri cooked up -- but with head trauma, any unconsciousness can get really bad if it lasts more than a few moments. If he's got a cranial bleed I can fix that. Your choice."

It's not really a choice. He can gamble that Shawlong will wake up or die on his own. That's not a good bet, though.

"He got rammed through a cliff," Grimmjow says dryly, giving in. "His mask's cracked too, he lost part of it. You know what to do with that?"

The elder Kurosaki gives an overblown wince, sucking in air between his teeth. "I have to admit that's not something I studied, no! Lay him down on the couch, I'll be right over. Ichigo, you hand out the antiseptic and bandages. And someone help that poor blond guy sit down already, his leg will heal with three more joints."

Grimmjow is vaguely impressed that he said "someone" and didn't even glance at Di Roy, who's so frazzled at having to deal with two stronger alphas on their own turf he's probably about to start biting random shit. Grimmjow goes to the couch and gives Nakeem a hand straightening out Shawlong's ridiculously long legs across the cushions; then he stays standing by Shawlong's waist as the shinigami comes to crouch near his head and starts laying green-glowing hands.

Grimmjow doesn't even pretend his own hand is anywhere but on his sword, either. 

Behind him Kurosaki is pulling out a chair and dragging it to Yylfordt. Then another one for Edrad, tilting his head and not saying anything, just waiting. Edrad's jaw rolls slowly as he thinks it out, but then he nods his acceptance and sits, too, at the corner of the table and right at Grimmjow's back, give or take a couple of steps. Safe.

"Okay, we starting with your arm or his legs?"

Grimmjow is watching the older Kurosaki's hands and Shawlong's clammy face, but from the corner of his eye he can still see the younger Kurosaki pulling himself a chair, too, sitting right between Grimmjow's men, and then offering his hands palms up for Edrad to place his arm into. At a faint nod he starts feeling up the forearm -- corded with thick muscles, it'll be a miracle if he finds the break at all. Grimmjow took it at Edrad's word that the bone was broken.

But yeah, it has visibly swelled up since. 

The room goes quiet as the Kurosakis do their thing, as Grimmjow's fracción simmers down, leans on things, takes a minute to just breathe.

Shawlong is missing over half of the long point that jutted out from the side of his mask. It's not as bad as losing any part that actually covered his flesh -- it's a loss of reiryoku, he's gonna leak like a sieve for a while yet, but losing the same amount of bone across his covered eye and temple may have killed him outright. Could have been worse. 

Could have been better, too.

But could have been worse. He could have stayed dead; then Grimmjow would never have gotten him back, gotten any of them back. 

He was fine alone. He'd been fine before they met, and he survived after they all got killed off, too. He doesn't even want to know how they would have handled the Quincy war. 

Then again. There were plenty of lower-ranked Quincies and none of them knew how to hunt as a pack, squabbling like prideful morons instead of being efficient and sharing kills. Harribel's girls were great at that, handled themselves fine cleaning out the riff raff -- until they ran out of luck at least. Grimmjow's guys could have...

He was alone there. He had nothing but his rematch with Kurosaki, some shaky, half-hearted alliance with Harribel and Odelschwanck based more on just not having any goals at all for them to get in the way of, to create conflict. He had nothing to fight anyone for back in Hueco Mundo. It wasn't an alliance; they were just haunting the same piece of territory. He had nothing to lose but his life and so he went after Askin once and then twice, because why the fuck not. The more Quincies he killed there and the fewer there would be to ambush Kurosaki later, deprive Grimmjow of his fight.

He still hasn't had his fight.

But... 

Fuck it. He's too tired.

"Alright, I've done what I could."

Grimmjow flinches -- looks down. Older Kurosaki is slowly unfolding from his crouch, cracking his neck as he rolls his head back and forth, locking his fingers together to stretch them out. Grimmjow takes a step back on his bad knee to give him more space. The guy has to have nerves of steel to have tolerated Grimmjow close enough to grab him by the back of the neck all along. 

Shawlong looks a little less sallow. His brow seems less pinched. 

"There was some internal bleeding and a nice little brain bruise but that's gone now. He's going to sleep it off for a few hours, and then I suspect his general state of exhaustion will do the rest, so don't force him to wake up in full if he doesn't want to. Ichigo?" 

"Big guy's fracture doesn't need to be straightened up, so I put a forearm splint on it to keep it steady, but I'm not sure about Blondie's legs. I'm pretty sure they're both broken, and he went and walked on them. One of them's just a crack but the other one has moved around. You mind if he looks?" he adds, looking up at Yylfordt. He's sitting in his chair still but he's leaning down, elbows on his own knees, so he can peer at the leg Yylfordt has stretched out before him. The back of his head and the whole line of his back are offered to the two of them, and something twinges down Grimmjow's spine, wanting to growl at them, warn them off taking Kurosaki up on it.

Kurosaki is _his_ kill.

Kurosaki is their only chance of survival. Nobody kills him.

Kurosaki is a fucking moron, careless and without any hierro.

Then again if he gets killed here he's gonna go Vasto Lorde straight up and probably have all of them for a light snack before he's anywhere near ready to calm the fuck down and locate his sense of self again.

... Fucking _careless_. Ugh. Grimmjow gives up; Grimmjow sits on the arm of the couch by Shawlong's feet, his back against the outer wall of the house, and watches without a word as the older Kurosaki talks the younger through feeling up the broken bones and guiding them back into place. It involves Di Roy growling see-saw like he's a menos on a hunt and Nakeem wordlessly offering a spare splint for Yylfordt to bite down on. Yylfordt's hands are locked claw-like on the edges of his seat; wood splinters, but neither Kurosaki says anything about it.

Bloodied skin is cleaned. Two more splints are strapped on. A general offer of painkillers is made and refused.

"Grimmjow, you good? Want anything for your knee?"

He watches Kurosaki drag his chair until he's in front of Grimmjow, leaning in so he's not looming or anything. 

"Oh, hey, you're kinda bloody. Wanna clean that up before you ruin all our futons?"

"... Your what?"

"Beds? Well, more like mattresses. We've got like five of them in my closet all ready to unroll, it'll be nice. But they're a pain to wash, so..."

Grimmjow unzips his jumpsuit, lets it pool down around his waist. His stab wound is oozing sluggishly; he's got crusted-on blood all over his side.

He sees Kurosaki twitch like he's about to lean forward and put the washcloth on him -- wash Grimmjow, like that's a thing they can do between them. A thing he wants. 

Kurosaki doesn't do it. He clears his throat, makes a weird smile, offers the damp cloth. Grimmjow scrubs his side clean. It starts bleeding a little again. He takes a sticky square of bandage and slaps it on without checking if it's perfectly centered. He doesn't fucking care anymore.

"Um. A splint? For your knee? It'll still let you bend it, it'll just support you so it doesn't twist any worse. Do you know if it's the tendons or the bone or what? I guess it'd be stiffer if you broke your kneecap..."

"Just twisted it."

He takes the offered splint, then stares down at his leg. He just needs to bend over and strap it on. Then he'll be done.

(He just needs to hand it back to Kurosaki and say _'I can't; do it for me_.')

Breathing through his nose, he stretches out his leg; goes about strapping it on. His side stings; his leg aches. His hands weigh tons.

Face to face, their feet almost touching, Kurosaki is watching him.

"I've got sweaters and hoodies if you want. You don't have to put the top back on. I'll bring them down, okay?" 

It's... fucking coddling, fucking _coddling_ him -- that tone of voice, casual and a little quiet, no wariness, no tension. Thinking he looks -- cold, or defenseless, bared, whatever. Grimmjow used to fight topless but for a half-hearted jacket and it was never anything but a dare, offering the enemy a wide choice of targets they would never reach. He watches Kurosaki stand and go and says nothing; doesn't know what to say, tired bewilderment keeping offended rage choked down, or smothered out.

Standing in turn, the elder Kurosaki gathers all the rolls of cloth and the bottles and the needles and thread and he places them very obviously on the counter, and then he turns to look at them and he nods.

"I'll be going back to bed now. You're welcome to take what you need from our things." A pleasant smile, empty-eyed. "But I don't want to feel any of you going upstairs while my daughters are asleep. I will kill you where you stand."

Grimmjow can't help snorting. Heh. "Yeah, fair enough."

He leaves. Silence. 

Grimmjow watches the room, noting down strange details, decorations. There's a picture of an unknown woman's face taking up a whole wall, of all things. Smaller squares showing other people, or random scenery, or strange, shaky scribbles on white paper. ' _Dog at sunset, Karin, age three_.' Pointlessly small cushions. It's like being on an alien planet. At least the too-regular lines of Las Noches were the only disturbing things, coming out of the dunes. There wasn't all that color, all that... _stuff_.

He doesn't like being topless in here, and it feels weird thinking about wearing Kurosaki's clothes, so he wrestles his top back on. Zips it up halfway. He kind of regrets... 

No.

"Grimmjow?" Di Roy says, very quietly. He's huddled half behind the counter, shoulders drawn in. 

Grimmjow makes himself grunt an acknowledgement, waiting for more. 

"Are we really... Do you -- they're _shinigami_."

"Mnh." He thinks about it. "Kind of. Kurosaki... The orange one," he adds with a faint snort. "He's a living human first. Sometimes he pulls out an actual hollow mask."

Yylfordt goggles. " _What?_ " 

They're all staring at him, baffled. Grimmjow snorts. "Yeeeah, he's fucking weird. I think... I don't know what the fuck is up with him, but he's not really part of their army. He just helps when he feels like it. Seen him disobey orders left, right, and center."

"You're hoping he'll disobey for us," Edrad says. 

Grimmjow can't answer. Yeah, he does. He can't make any solid argument with actual proof for it, either. It's just a feeling. A hope.

"Mostly hoping they won't even notice us through that bullshit reiatsu incontinence he has going on."

Yylfordt and Edrad exchange a look; Yylfordt makes a face, upper lip curling in displeasure. "The longer we stay in one place, though... The barrier's good, but fuck, Grimmjow, you know they've got our reiatsu patterns down. It'll make it out at some point and then we're done."

"They won't attack Kurosaki's own house," he counters. "Not offhand at least. Might try to convince him to give us up but he's the most stubborn asshole on the planet, it'll take a while. We rest, we run again. They'll have to give up at some point."

He doesn't want to have to run again. It's been... he doesn't even know how long it's been. It'll end up the same way, anyway. The shinigami can relieve each other. They have enough people for that. It's never gonna stop.

"Okay, no, fuck this. We rest up. Then if they still want us we're gonna ram ourselves down their throats."

They'll probably die, but at least they'll make sure some of the shinigami die choking, too.

Fat lot of good it did him, the "Gratitude of the Seireitei for your Courageous Help during the latest Conflict."

Then again they only told that one straight to Harribel. Grimmjow was with Urahara, and Urahara is an outlaw too. They're probably gonna pretend they never saw him do jack shit and he's not one of Harribel's men, so it doesn't count.

(They'll probably forget their so-called gratitude to Harribel's people the second they're done rebuilding in full, anyway. Another couple years and then goodbye, tense cease-fire. Shinigami and hollows are just not made to cohabitate in peace.)

"Okay, here's the futons," Kurosaki announces as he stumbles out of the staircase, carrying an armful of things piled so high he can't see over it. "I'll move the table, we can just..."

He looks at Grimmjow and his face falls a little. He pseudo-discreetly dumps a sweater out of sight behind the counter; then he makes his way past the table and dumps the rest of his armload in the middle of the open space.

(The table and couch are angled so that they're looking at something, but apart from the walls, Grimmjow has no idea what. That glassy black rectangle reminds him of the surveillance room's viewscreens, but it's huge, and really flat, and Grimmjow really has no idea what the point of spying on the neighbors while seated in comfort would be.)

Edrad stands and moves away from the table to let Kurosaki turn it on its side and prop it on the far wall to free more space, and then they all watch as he unrolls the futons and starts wrestling sheets with elastic corners onto them. 

"You guys could help me, geeze. No, never mind, you're injured. Ugh. Okay. I can only fit four of them in here. Anyone want to sleep in the kitchen corner, we might be able to put in another one?"

"We're not all gonna sleep at the same time anyway," Grimmjow interrupts him, because the man seems gone for another hour of fussing if they let him keep going. "Four is fine."

Sitting on his heels in the middle of the spread of mattresses, hands on his hips, Kurosaki stares at him.

"... Mmmh. Okay. Be right back."

"What the _fuck_ else," Di Roy groans, and shuffles his way around the end of the counter and lets himself topple face first on the futon along the counter's wall. "Ugh. Shit. Who gets first watch?"

"You realize you're the least injured, and you're already shirking," Yylfordt snipes back.

"I'm taking the first watch," Grimmjow interrupts. "No bitching. You wake up his girls and we're gonna wear out our welcome really fast with the other Kurosaki. Nakeem, I haven't heard you in a while, you good?"

"Mm. Cracked ribs. I can take second watch."

"Alright. Then Di Roy, then Edrad. Yylfordt, you fucking stay put, you walk on that leg again and I'm gonna break your neck. We don't need an emergency meal so bad that we'll cart around your scrawny ass a second longer than we have to."

Yylfordt sputters. Grimmjow arches a challenging eyebrow. He's got something like a smile trying to curl up his mouth, though. 

After they all teamed up it was rare for them to get licked quite so thoroughly, but it did happen here and there. This is familiar.

"My ass isn't _scrawny_ ," is what Yylfordt eventually settles on. "Excuse you, Grimmjow- _sama_. My ass is trim and _fine_."

Pfft. "You gonna challenge me to an ass-off, Yylfordt?" he asks, starting to smirk. "That what I'm hearing here? You're asserting ass dominance?"

Yylfordt's mouth twitches, and then Edrad lifts his head to stare pleadingly at the ceiling, and they all start cackling, breathless and quiet, stupid with exhaustion.

" _Well_. There's justified pride, and then there's unbridled ass arrogance," Yylfordt manages eventually, fake-abashed, and they're gone for another round. Di Roy has his face in the mattress and is making squeaky giggly noises.

They all go silent when there's footfalls in the staircase, once again. Grimmjow is a little disappointed. Also a little frustrated that this place is so saturated with Kurosaki's power, he can't keep a closer eye on him.

Another armful of cloth, that he dumps in a pile past Di Roy's feet. Di Roy has turned fast to face him, but this time he stays seated on the futon, though he's watching him from under the edge of his mask sulkily. Kurosaki doesn't seem to notice, fussing with the pile of... Oh, blankets and pillows. Huh.

"Heard you guys laughing," he comments too casually.

They all clam up. Grimmjow sighs through his nose. He doesn't... It's. He gets why they don't trust Kurosaki at all. 

Not that Grimmjow trusts him either, of course, but -- he has a better handle on his behavior. Kurosaki isn't the mind games type. 

Also he's still mostly a plus soul, so he's not gonna think they're edible. Probably.

"Deciding on best ass," he says. Kurosaki blinks up at him, eyes wide. 

"What?"

He looks so baffled, so wide open; Grimmjow can't resist. He leans in, bares his teeth in a challenging grin. (Ow, ribs.) "Who'd you vote for, Kurosaki?"

Kurosaki chokes very satisfyingly. "I am sure I never even noticed any of you had asses in the first place, so _no_."

Edrad's lips twitch. He stays silent for a second; then Grimmjow arches an eyebrow at him -- come _on_ , he's the best at dealing with outsiders, Grimmjow included, he has _got_ to be able to... Grimmjow isn't sure. Make an overture. Something.

"You say you've fought him several times, Grimmjow, right?"

Okay, this is going somewhere. He's not sure where, but _somewhere_. "Right."

"Were you in resurrección for any of them?"

"Fuck yeah, I was. Why?"

Edrad turns a mild look toward Kurosaki, eyelids heavy with doubt and lips curled up in amused mockery. "Then it's absolutely impossible that there isn't at least one of us you have an ass opinion on."

Kurosaki turns scarlet. Grimmjow cackles in victory.

Then he almost draws his sword to cut down a flying pillow.

Everyone freezes.

"--Oh, fuck. I. Sorry. I wasn't thinking." Kurosaki stands, awkward, grimacing. Grimmjow still has half of Pantera's blade bared and ready.

"... S'fine," he eventually says. "Stay here."

He pulls her entirely out of his belt, sheath and all, leans her against the wall that the couch presses its side up to. Then he looks up, and Kurosaki is still standing there, still wincing down at him.

"Need you to take off your body, if you can. If the barrier will hold."

Kurosaki actually looks startled. "The barrier? What b-- oh! Oh, right, yeah. I just. I don't usually notice it, I kinda forgot."

... He _doesn't notice it_. Pfft. God does he piss Grimmjow off some days. It's probably keyed to him anyway, but still.

"For all I can tell it was set before I was born, and I'm really bad at sensing reiatsu and -- okay, I only figured out it was there last year." He makes a face. "Feel free to mock or whatever. It's probably Urahara and Tessai-san who made it and they'd have to have been tweaking it regularly to keep up with my shit, so it's probably strong enough, yeah."

"But you're not sure."

"We never really... talked about the specs." 

Or about it at all, Grimmjow would bet. He rolls his eyes, slowly unfolds from his seat. (The splint does help; he's surprised.) "Then can you... Ugh." The others are gonna be annoying about it. "Okay, we need you to stay close, to muddle our reiatsu properly. You mind sleeping down here?"

Kurosaki has gone back onto his knees at the edge of the mattress and he's fussing with the blankets, not looking up at Grimmjow. "Um. Yeah. Sure. I can be in the kitchen corner, then."

Yeah, no. That half-assed wall is no protection at all; if he's hiding where they can't even see him Grimmjow's fracción is gonna be on edge all night and nobody will sleep at all. "No. Next to me."

He wanders onto the mattress, slowly goes down on one knee. Here's a good spot. Not quite in the middle, enough space for someone to slip in behind him if they don't want to be next to Kurosaki. He'd stick him next to a wall but the idiot would just go and casually step over everyone when he has to piss or gargle or some other human weirdness.

Grimmjow sits, slow and ponderous, and then starts to work on taking off his boots. Hierro or not, his feet are so fucking sore he could weep. If they're attacked he'll be better off barefoot.

Kurosaki grimaces at him. "Ugh. Keeping your shoes inside wasn't bad enough, you had to walk on the _actual mattress_. Never mind, I'm over it. You're sleeping in the foot tracks."

Grimmjow eyes the mattress for those tracks and sees barely anything. He rolls his eyes. "How did you handle Hueco Mundo, again?"

"I wasn't sleeping in the sand! Also it wasn't _dusty_."

Rolling his eyes, he throws his boots in the corner where he put down his sword. Yeah, he can reach it, it's good. He's about to try stretching out to grab a pillow to prop himself up on and then suddenly there's a folded sheet landing across his legs. Or something like a sheet, only it's thick and... Huh. "What's in there?"

"Feathers. S' a comforter. Here, have a pillow."

Mildly baffled, he watches Kurosaki shuffle across the joined futons on his knees, dropping pillows and comforters here and there, fluffing them up, tucking some more pillows against the hard edges of some bit of furniture or other, in case someone rolls out of bed or something. It's ridiculous.

He doesn't recognize it for what it is until Kurosaki goes up on his knees to look at the rest of his fracción and asks Nakeem in an oddly neutral, cautiously restrained voice, "You wanna lay down?"

Nakeem's been leaning on the wall all along, not sitting and not moving, just keeping watch. His worst injuries are bruised ribs (maybe cracked but not broken clean) and a full complement of bone-deep bruises and rashes, so no one's been paying much attention to him.

He's the calmest, and least knee-jerk hostile, and Di Roy and Yylfordt are still watching Kurosaki like they're one too-fast gesture away from trying to bite out his throat, but Grimmjow can't shake the feeling that that isn't why he was approached first.

"Yes," Nakeem decides eventually, and Grimmjow can't see Kurosaki's face, with his back turned like this, but he hears the smile in his voice when he replies, "Great! How about you?"

"... Might as well."

Grimmjow watches, incredulous, as Kurosaki starts humming under his breath as Nakeem and then Edrad lower themselves cautiously onto the mattress. 

They're huge -- Edrad taller, Nakeem wider, and the futons are sized for smaller humans. They're gonna take up all the space.

Kurosaki lobs Nakeem a second blanket when he wedges up in the corner, still humming. Grimmjow blinks, stares up at Di Roy to -- yeah. Di Roy is goddamn quivering, but with a sad, desperate edge in his eyes that says he thinks it's a competition he has already lost. 

Kurosaki is fucking _nesting_. What the entire fuck. If they were outdoors he'd be digging them a little cave barehanded, but apparently they're doing it the ' _civilized_ ' way and it involves shifting some chairs around and draping them with a bedsheet so the wide opening between counter and couch looks narrower, more defensible, so that Shawlong's head isn't visible from the outside.

He _fucking spreads a blanket on Shawlong_.

Shawlong's a beta, but he's unconscious. Otherwise Kurosaki has somehow managed to get all three omegas in his nest already and Grimmjow _didn't even notice_. Jesus dick. How the shit.

"You guys getting in?" Kurosaki asks -- both Yylfordt and Di Roy.

Grimmjow didn't... Somehow, he didn't expect that. 

Inviting an omega's beta companions to join in is one thing, if they look like they won't be a problem (and you _have a pack to absorb them into_ ), but. 

Yylfordt glances at Di Roy, hesitates, puts on a disdainful sneer. 

Di Roy growls. Shit.

"Di Roy," Grimmjow starts saying, not even sure how he's gonna curb that before it happens. Kurosaki has got to have limits, and being challenged in his own den is gonna--

"You know what," Kurosaki says, oddly calm, "I'm not gonna get into a fight with you."

Then he uncoils from the mattress all at once, and he has a hand in Di Roy's collar, and then he's turning and bending fast to yank him over his shoulder and then they're both rolling head first, tumbling over Edrad's massive flank and bowling Grimmjow over, a ball of limbs and skin and knees in bad places, and Grimmjow snarls, gone stiff with the herculean effort it takes not to tear them both off him in the most bloody, deadly way.

When it comes to a stop Kurosaki is kneeling up on one side of his hips, leaning over him to pin Di Roy by the neck between Grimmjow and the wall. Di Roy's hips are still thrown across Grimmjow's thighs; his legs are _everywhere_ , kicking desperately and -- 

And Kurosaki pops something in his own mouth and then his spiritual pressure drops on the room like an anvil.

Takes Grimmjow a couple seconds before he even notices the second Kurosaki, throwing himself backwards and backing his ass right into Edrad's chest.

"Whoa! Haha um. My bad, my bad -- _Ichigo what the fuck we're in a pile of arrancar?!_ "

Shinigami uniform -- that's a spiritual form, still pinning Di Roy down, Di Roy now brought to a shallow-panting freeze. The body on the other side, still in sleep clothes, looking around wildly for an escape route. 

Grimmjow doesn't understand it, and it's acting like prey. It's really hard not to snatch it up, just on principle; but he jerks his head in a quick forceful 'no' for Yylfordt when the body hops and skips and ends up past the chairs.

Edrad gives him a pointed stare and then looks at Di Roy again. ... Yeah, he's still getting forced to submission right across Grimmjow's lap.

Goddamn, his brain is slow right now.

Well. Wasn't like Kurosaki was gonna do anything more. Killing him would probably stain the mattress. 

It's... Oddly interesting, watching that narrow-eyed expression being directed at someone else. That face that says it's gonna stride right through you if you don't get the fuck out of the way, that there's no other possible end result.

Kurosaki doesn't take a bite, though. Doesn't even lean in close enough to threaten. Just holds Di Roy down and waits him out.

"You dunderfucks wanna do that somewhere else than on my fucking knee," he eventually drawls, tired of watching Di Roy shake. It's not as funny as he was telling himself it would be. He knows it's just the 'sole alpha in a pack' thing that makes Di Roy instinctively think they're his, even though when they're using their heads everybody knows Grimmjow's in charge, but that doesn't make his reaction any less real. He's pretty much watching another alpha waltz in and take his pack out from under him. And they have no previous alliance, and Di Roy is so damn _weak_ ; useless, at best to be cast out.

Only he's still Grimmjow's, and Kurosaki isn't joining them -- and damn well isn't taking them over, either.

He punches Kurosaki in the side.

"--Oof! What the fuck?" Kurosaki holds his side, looking betrayed.

Grimmjow stares back in deadly earnest. "You've made your point, now can it."

He's expecting snarling, a challenge, a glare; Kurosaki just huffs, and breathes out, and then says, "Yeah, okay." Then he looks at Di Roy, who's pushing himself up onto his elbows still dazed. "Sorry I pushed so hard, but it's my house, you know. We good?"

Di Roy doesn't meet his eyes when he nods. Fucking _sigh_. "Just get some sleep," Grimmjow tells him quietly, annoyed and frustrated and something like sad. 

He doesn't comment anymore as Di Roy crawls between him and the wall, lays down onto his side, turning his back on them.

Yylfordt decides to shut up too, apparently, moving cautiously on his less-bad leg as he finds some space between Nakeem and Edrad where he can stretch out without touching anyone, pointedly avoiding even looking toward Kurosaki. He's Grimmjow's bitchiest braggart. Hell. Not good.

Kurosaki moves up on his knees, shuffles toward the couch, a hand up for the sword on his back (how did it get there? Was it stuck in his spirit all along? Huh.) and Grimmjow can't help tensing up. Shawlong is still completely out, defenseless.

Kurosaki doesn't even notice, just drops his biggest sword on the floor along the bottom of the couch, then the one at his waist, and leans carelessly over Shawlong to whisper to his body, "Hey, Kon, hit the lights on your way out, will you? No, wait, bring that side lamp to the chairs first and then turn the rest off."

"Ooh, _sure_ ," the body warbles, like he's singing between friendly and affronted, "a cozy little ambiance for your arrancar love nest--"

"Very funny, asshole. Will you hurry up, I want to go back to sleep already. I was having a perfectly good night until they invaded."

The body draws himself up, tone rising. " _You_ want to go back to -- what did you think _I_ was doing?!"

"You don't sleep!" Kurosaki hisses back in what he clearly thinks is an undertone.

" _I_ don't sleep! Oh, that's rich! What do you know about m--"

Then the body finally notices that Grimmjow and the rest of them are staring, and freezes in mid-word.

"I, uh. I'm gonna move that lamp now. Maybe install some folding screens to spare innocent eyes. Have a good _cuddle time_ , guys!" 

" _Ugh_ , Kon. Stop making everything dirty. Also, no screens, just tell Karin and Yuzu before they come down."

" _Sure_ , since I have nothing _better_ to do, like, oh, _sleep_ or anything," the body mutters. 

"Thanks," Kurosaki says dryly, "you're a lifesaver." Then he unceremoniously turns around and slumps face down to wedge between Grimmjow and Edrad, upside down from everybody else. "... Um, can I have a comforter please."

"One day I'm going to drown you in the sea, Ichigo," the body says as it cautiously leans over the chairs, side-eyeing Yylfordt nervously, and balls up a comforter. "One day."

"Uh _huh_."

His eyes are already closed. When the comforter lands he tugs it up to his shoulders, and then he doesn't move. 

Grimmjow sits up for another ten minutes, listening to the body turn off the lights and sneak loudly out of the room; listening to his fracción shuffle and breathe.

He doesn't look away from the face-down sprawl of Kurosaki Ichigo, though, that bundled-up body whose dandelion hair is the only part he can see; doesn't look away from the bare nape, the offered back he knows he would find if he pulled the comforter down.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... did people expect a lot of plot, because. 
> 
> this is v much not plot. >_>;

It's all dulled golden light and warmth when he wakes, thick fluff covering him but for a single escaped foot, unacceptably cold. He tucks it back in, yawning fit to crack his jaw, and settles back down, his face hidden up to his eyes. He's touching at least three other people but all their reiatsu are familiar and safe.

Someone's narrow back pressed against his spine. Legs tangled with his. A hand dangling limply, resting against his hair. 

Power everywhere, power and safety, and welcoming spicy scents, and ... mmh.

He doesn't remember when he last felt so good. It doesn't bother him much, though -- right now, he does feel good, and that's all that matters.

Footfalls outside of the nest. 

Edrad's deep voice rumbles quietly -- no alarm, no tension. A female voice replies, just as quietly, and then a second one. They move behind the counter, rummage around. He stretches his reiatsu sense but only really feels one of them, like a living shinigami, Kurosaki without any hollow, and it's odd. Too weak for a challenge, he thinks halfheartedly, and then realizes he doesn't even really worry about it. 

The other one might as well be any mundane human from the street.

"... food for Rukia-chan, you should be able to eat it too?"

"Huh, yeah, it's taking up fridge space, we might as well offload it on you. Yuzu keeps forgetting and ramming leftovers in it."

"It's not my fault it looks like empty space! Um, did you say anything, Arrancar-san?"

Edrad chuckles. "She's fussy."

"You're a hungry omega under her roof," the other female voice replies dryly. "Yuzu, he said you were fussy, I'm not sure we can feed him anymore."

"Oh! That deserves a spanking. I'm going to tell my big brother on you."

Edrad snorts; so does Grimmjow, eyes closed, mouth smiling under the comforter. That might not be the deterrent she thinks. Heh. 

"But am I still getting the food?"

"Ugh, probably, yes. Is he still getting the food?"

"We don't use _food_ as punishment in this household," the other voice replies primly. "We use Dad's sweaty hugs."

Edrad snorts again, lets himself chuckle. "I'll have to be more polite then."

"You should be polite all the time," the dry voice says, and the prim voice goes "Umm, _Karin-chan_ , glass houses and stones?"

"B'kfast?" Kurosaki mumbles from somewhere under Grimmjow's chin. 

Oh. Yeah. He's somewhere under there, in the pile of blankets and feather-filled things. He probably turned around during the night because his bare feet are tangled with Grimmjow's; his knees sandwich Grimmjow's calf, winding around to hook heels together behind Grimmjow's ankle. They're not really touching otherwise but that's only a matter of inches, Kurosaki on his side facing him and when Grimmjow peeks under the comforters he finds him hugging a pillow.

He's only in the white underlayer of his kimono. It gapes open at the neck. Grimmjow hums quietly, contemplating it. 

"... alright if I'm not the one who eats it? I'm not sure if it'll _help_ , but it's still reishi food, so it can't hurt."

"Oh, sure. Is one of you guys really hungry? We could go and buy something at Urahara-san's shop. I'm sure he's got everything. Brother? Brother, are you awake?"

" _\--Breakfast_ ," Kurosaki says all at once, and sits up in a leap.

He drags all the blankets off with him. Grimmjow curls on the sheets like a snake and bites the nearest hanging wrist.

"Ow!"

"Fuckin' _cold!_ "

"Ugh, _sorry_ , your _majesty_ ," Kurosaki grumbles back, and makes a show of tugging the comforter back up and tucking it around him, rolling his eyes like an asshole. Grimmjow huffs, but settles back down into his pillow, yanking Kurosaki's own pillow free to tuck it under his neck as well. Those little squishy things are so _superfluous_ in the life he leads but fuck if they're not comfortable. He really needs to get himself a permanent set of rooms in Las Noches or dig out a cave or something so he can start stockpiling that shit. He's gonna kidnap every single one he can carry from Kurosaki's house, for starters. Teach him to have so many and make them smell so good.

There's something about this line of thought he vaguely thinks he should examine, but he's in too good a mood to bother. He's safe, he's warm, his pack is healing. The rest of the world can wait on him to be done basking for once.

He listens vaguely to Kurosaki greeting his sisters and Edrad, and the clinking of plates on the counter. 

"... really think that'll work for you guys? I mean it's not really a hollow steak... Guess I could go hunt one down but that's kind of gross and would probably take hours besides."

Edrad has laughter in his voice when he replies to Kurosaki, quietly rumbling. "We can still taste it fine, we just need a lot of it to be worth it in terms of food and it never quite hits the spot. On the upside we don't really eat more than once a week to once a month, so I'm pretty sure he'll survive until you're done shopping."

"Yeah -- uh. Wait. Who are you talking about?"

"... I don't _know_ , Shinigami-san, who were you going to bring this plate to?"

Silence, heavy with... Grimmjow isn't sure. He grunts into his pillow, annoyed by the suddenly-roiling feel of the reiatsu saturating the room. 

"Oh my _god_ , Ichi-nii."

"What? Don't _oh my god_ me. What?! I wasn't -- he's -- what. Really?"

... Whatever is causing Kurosaki to splutter and squeak like that can only be ridiculous. Considering, he stretches out his legs, rounds out his back, and sits, letting the blankets pile up around his waist.

Kurosaki is staring right back at him, overflowing plate in hand and a poleaxed look on his face.

"What?"

"You're an _omega?!_ "

Grimmjow gives the slowest, most contemptuous blink he possibly can. He's been blessed with what Nelliel calls a resting bitch face to start with, he can reach pretty amazing levels of ' _you're a complete imbecile'_ when he tries. "You seriously didn't know that?"

"You've been in my face challenging me at every turn since we met, _no I didn't know!_ "

"Are you _nose-blind_?"

"I'm not nose-blind!"

"You're a _little_ nose-blind, brother."

"He thought Rukia was a beta for like two months."

"After that he thought she was maybe an omega--"

"She was nesting in my closet!"

"She was _laying claim_ to your closet!"

"Oh my god," Kurosaki whines, and sinks into one of the sheet-covered chairs, still holding the plate and staring at Grimmjow. "Oh jesus fucking shit. I built you a nest in my living room."

"You built _my entire pack_ a nest in your living room," Grimmjow corrects, and lets a smirk bloom slow and smug across his face.

"Wow, I hate you so much," Kurosaki says, amazed like a divine revelation.

"But will you still do right by me," Grimmjow replies, and starts cackling at the expression on his face. "Or I can fuck Di Roy, it won't be the first time--"

Chair toppling on the floor. Plate clacking on the counter. Suddenly Grimmjow is on his back across his pillows and Kurosaki on top of him grabbing him by the shoulders and he barely even saw him move.

He really wants to kick him in the crotch, teach him that Grimmjow is not to be fucking _manhandled_.

He really wants to want that, but all he feels is a wave of heat blooming in his guts, right under the edge of his hollow hole.

Fuck. He really is in heat, huh.

Been a while. 

"You are _not_ ," Kurosaki starts, a vibrating, discordant hollow-snarl underlining his words -- and then freezes, jaw clamped, eyes wide and furious, the brown of them flickering honey-gold for a very long instant.

Behind them Di Roy starts growling back but it's shaky at the edges, barely holding up under the weight of Kurosaki's reiatsu, of the rising darkness in it. Kurosaki's inner hollow is a lord of their kind, there's no mistaking it.

"...You're an omega," Kurosaki says slowly, like every word costs him, like he's tearing them out of a nest of snarls instead, "and you're in heat."

Grimmjow arches an eyebrow. He's starting to feel pretty... pretty. Tingly. Hell, but Scary Kurosaki kind of does it for him, apparently. He knew he liked him better furious but _huh_. 

"Yeah?" Yeah, he really is in heat, if he's thinking stuff like this. 

"And you're -- you want." Kurosaki shakes his head, closes his eyes for a few seconds. "If I... go elsewhere, for a few hours, that's. My reiatsu isn't going to hide you guys anymore."

Grimmjow blinks, drags his brain back from the languid tangle of need it was starting to stray in. "Probably not." His eyebrows knit in utter confusion. "Why the fuck would you leave, though? It's your home. It's your _nest_."

Kurosaki whimpers, curling up so that his forehead presses against Grimmjow's breastbone. "Because you already _have_ a designated alpha?!"

"A what?" chorus Grimmjow, Yylfordt and Di Roy with various levels of confusion and disdain.

Kurosaki looks at them all, baffled. "You know? In case of heat where I'm gonna lose my head, I'd like it known in advance that I want this one person to--"

"If Di Roy were enough for Grimmjow's appetite, it would be a different world entirely," Shawlong says from the couch, making everyone jump.

"Hey, you're alive!" Grimmjow throws, craning his head back to look at him. "Fuck you."

"Shall I consider myself fucked?" Shawlong replies, entirely deadpan. Grimmjow groans and drops his head back onto the pillows.

He's probably been awake for the last half-hour or more. Noting down every little detail and plotting little plotty thoughts. Grimmjow _knows_ him. " _Ugh_. Why did we drag his ass along again."

He's... It's good, though. Thank fucking God or Satan or whoever that he didn't die. If Grimmjow had to corral his imbeciles all on his own he'd probably kill them himself in under a week. He tries not to smile, then fails, but at least Shawlong can't see it because Kurosaki is still in his face. The poor asshole looks completely bewildered.

"Fuck every single one of you," Di Roy mutters, huddled face down in the corner in defeat.

"I don't--" Kurosaki starts. "I don't understand anything here. Like. _Anything_. He's not your...?"

"He's mine," Grimmjow growls back. "They're _all_ mine. Because I'm strong enough to take all of them together and come out on top, and yeah, you can take that as a double-entendre."

"The boss never gets tired," Yylfordt groans theatrically as he sits up, discreetly sniffing the air and then making a face. "And that's going to be a bad one."

"A strong one," Shawlong corrects from the couch where he... hasn't even attempted to push himself up. (Huh. Potentially not good. Unless he's playing it up? Grimmjow is gonna hope for that one.) 

Then Shawlong gives Kurosaki a long, weighing look -- then looks at Grimmjow, eyebrow arched in pointed disbelief. Grimmjow frowns back. What. 

"Maybe not a _bad_ one. If we can stay that long."

Kurosaki blinks dumbly for a minute. "Um. Let me just... You guys are planning to stay here through Grimmjow's..."

Something goes tight in Grimmjow's belly, but it doesn't feel good. He clenches his hands on Kurosaki's wrists. "You kicking us out?"

He's a little gratified by the immediate, slightly wild-eyed reaction he gets to that -- Kurosaki's hands tightening on his shoulders, fingers digging in a little bit to pin him more securely. "Oh _hell_ no, you're not going anywhere." He blinks, shakes his head, tries again. "If -- if you don't want to leave, you're not leaving."

... Grimmjow borderline _begged_ him to allow them in. Where the fuck else does Kurosaki think they can go to spend his heat, with a hundred shinigami after them? Harribel isn't gonna be changing her mind over a free marathon fuck.

"Can't be bothered," he eventually drawls, but that's saving face and everybody knows it.

"Well. Good." Another deep breath; and Kurosaki leans back a little, shifts his weight off his hands, like he's about to let go. "And you... Um..."

"Fuck's sake, Ichi-nii," the sister who can see them calls out, "he's designating _you_."

Kurosaki turns fucking _pink_. Huh.

He opens his mouth and it's gonna be stupid, so Grimmjow plants his heels in the sheets and rolls his hips very slowly under him, staring straight at him in challenge.

He goes from pink to scarlet. Grimmjow can't even help smirking, entertained and baffled both. What the fuck even is this guy. He's ridiculous. Most powerful alpha in all the planes of existence, has three fucking omegas -- one in heat -- in his home, in his _nest_ , and he behaves like... Grimmjow doesn't even know if he's ever met someone who behaved like this. Bashful? Is that what bashful is?

"On that note, I'm getting Dad and we're spending the next couple days in a hotel, okay? Yuzu, come on. ... Yuzu, you can't even _see_ the omega, you cannot _help_ the omega."

"But," the other, borderline not-there sister whines. 

"Yuzu, if you stay here then _Dad_ is staying here and then the three of you are gonna be co-daddies together, you get me?"

The look of grossed-out horror that passes on Kurosaki's face is _amazing_. Grimmjow blinks slowly, beholding it, then tilts his head to try to see the girl -- there she is, a scrawny thing with sandy hair and the exact same expression. She's strangling a spatula.

"What did I do in my previous life to deserve being saddled with _three alphas in a four-people household_?" the first sister grumbles, rolling her eyes to the sky, as she grabs the other one by the shoulder and marches her to the corridor behind the stairs. "Sorry Ichi-nii, I'm gonna have my hands full corralling the two of them, will you guys be okay? There's some betas amongst you guys, right, you're not _all_ going to be messed up?"

Yylfordt raises his hand, propped up on one elbow and broken legs stretched out fearlessly over the sheets. Shawlong snorts quietly, hums an acknowledgement; his hand tilts up, too, though his elbow doesn't even leave the cushions.

"Oookay," she says, "that's gonna be a problem."

Still wild-eyed, still flushed red, Kurosaki sits up (right across Grimmjow's hips, heavy and thighs firm and muscled on him), looks at Grimmjow's fracción in turn, wincing; he meets Shawlong's eyes and his expressions smooths down into something cooler, more watchful, less openly frazzled.

"You know what you can handle better than I do, but I won't ask you to move around with a head wound. Worst comes to worst, we've got... Ugh. Kon." 

"Uh," the stronger sister asks, "he's in your body, isn't he gonna get...?"

Kurosaki frowns. "Dunno. He never did, but he was never around a heat either. No, wait, there was that time I was in rut and he just bitched that his hand hurt from -- um. Waving! Waving. Probably that."

The weaker sister turns to look at the stronger one. "Did Brother say something stupid again? Like, _really_ stupid?"

"See! I _told_ you your ghost sense was getting stronger. C'mon, Yuzu, out you go. I'll throw you your bag from the window. Get some fresh air."

"And Dad?"

"Dunno about throwing, but I can probably trick him out the window..."

"Karin-chan! That's not what I meant!" the weaker sister is still complaining as she's manhandled through the corridor under the stairs, but she sounds like she's laughing a bit. 

Then they're gone and Grimmjow and his fracción are alone with Kurosaki.

He's still straddling Grimmjow's hips.

He looks like he's trying to wish himself dead, too, and like maybe if he doesn't move even to breathe they'll stop seeing him, confuse him with a tree or something. Grimmjow snorts despite himself, then gives up and starts full-out cackling. 

"What the _shit_ was that, Kurosaki. Waving?"

Still scarlet, Kurosaki picks up a pillow, telegraphs starting to slam it down in Grimmjow's face in exaggerated slow motion. 

Grimmjow has never felt less threatened in his entire life. He's pinned under him and he doesn't even get a twinge of a hint of actual danger.

(He still bats the pillow out of his hand on principle, but both the pillow and Kurosaki's hand survive the experience.)

He's been running for weeks trying to keep his pack alive -- no den, no allies, no respite. He's been running for weeks and here comes this impossible asshole.

No wonder he woke up so ready to be fucked.

"If you're not doing me in the next minute I'm going straight to your _daddy_ ," he threatens/purrs/mocks/teases, and bursts out cackling all over again when he ends up half out of his jumpsuit in the next second, Kurosaki suddenly standing over his lap with both hands diving down the unzipped front. He ends up with his arms tangled in the sleeves and Kurosaki growls, or whines, fighting to pull the cloth further down.

He shouldn't have counted too much on Kurosaki being the mildest alpha he's ever met, because then there's a snarl, and then a great cloth-ripping noise. He really, _really_ should have expected it.

"Hey," he growls -- but it's. It makes him warmer, his belly gone tight and molten. Fuck. Yes. (Kurosaki doing this, it's... It isn't a reaction that says 'ehh, it's an easy fuck, why not'. It's a reaction that says...)

Kurosaki curls down into him, hands fisted in shredded cloth, presses his forehead against his breastbone. He's breathing fast through his mouth, like he's afraid of smelling him too much. "Wear my things. I've got things. You wear them." 

Oh. Yes.

But not anytime soon.

"I have no intention of wearing jack fucking shit for the foreseeable future," he murmurs back, head rising off the mattress to get closer to his ear -- and then orders, still low and quiet but sharp, too; " _Finish it_."

Kurosaki tears the rest of his jumpsuit in two right down to his crotch.

(It's still all of one piece in the back and legs, mind.)

The cloth pulls away from Grimmjow's cunt and fucking _squelches_. Kurosaki's hands are fisted tight on the halves of his deceased jumpsuit and he's staring like a total dumbass at Grimmjow's crotch, so Grimmjow decides to take things into his own hands. 

Also Kurosaki's dick. He's in a kimono, it's not exactly difficult access. 

His hand dives between kimono flaps right under the belt, finds thin cloth over a burning-hot length of hard flesh, squeezes. He wants his claws, so he can shred it free, but if he nicks Kurosaki's cock he's not gonna get to ride it. 

Ah. There it is. He takes a second to appreciate the heft and the radiating warmth of it, the silky-thin skin against his sword-roughened palm; then he tilts his hips up, guides him down.

Kurosaki freezes a half-inch away from making contact. "--Oh fuuuuck, condoms, condoms, I don't have any fucking condoms--"

He braces his hands over Grimmjow's shoulders, eyes wild and sclerae black. Then he's just -- unmoveable. He stares down at Grimmjow, or glares at him maybe, lips curled up like he's in pain, like he's about to bite. The thought zings through Grimmjow's guts, grounds in his spine like lightning. He throws his good leg over Kurosaki's hip, hooks a foot over his ass. Ah. Skin to wet skin. Kurosaki hisses, scrunching his eyes closed. 

" _Kon!_ Kon--"

"Why the hell are you holding back like that," Yylfordt asks, sitting up a couple of feet away. Kurosaki flinches, stares at him wild-eyed like he had forgotten he was there. "No, seriously, he's gonna flip you over in a second. What's the issue?"

Grimmjow is actually getting kind of _really annoyed_ about it; he holds himself back from grinding against Kurosaki's dick somehow. He tells himself he's just finding out how offended he should be, so he can extract appropriate revenge. It has nothing to do with the edge of too-real desperation on Kurosaki's face.

"Condoms -- no babies? I don't -- we're not a _couple_ , I can't just knock him up--"

Grimmjow is pretty sure everybody in the room blinks. Di Roy sputters out something no doubt offensive -- but then Edrad crosses back from the counter, goes down onto his knees next to the both of them, and his brow has smoothed out, there's a faint smile on his mouth. When he looks at Kurosaki he tilts his head and long red hair tumbles over his shoulder.

Grimmjow tightens the hold of his leg and growls a warning on pure instinct. Edrad glances down at him and snorts before he can help it. "No poaching, Boss. He's yours until you're done."

Mollified, Grimmjow grumbles under his breath as he relaxes into the mattress. Kurosaki's face is still -- once again? -- scarlet.

"Hollows can't breed," Edrad says. "Well, there's rumors that some Vasto Lordes once managed, but... Barragan would have bragged if he'd ever had a child, or even heard of it firsthand, and he's older than the Seireitei."

" _Was_ ," Grimmjow corrects under his breath, without thought. Edrad twitches.

"... Right."

Grimmjow told them there were very few survivors, but. Yeah. In passing. They didn't really have time to sit around and catch up on gossip.

None of them liked the crusty old asshole, anyway. But Edrad had some kind of sparring-and-conversations thing with one of his fracción, and they'd never have allowed the old cot to kick the bucket even if they had to kick it first. 

Which they did. Meh.

Charlotte's kind of alive again now, at least. He doesn't think she was the one Edrad was friends with, but that's something. Maybe.

"... Okay," Kurosaki says cautiously, still breathing through his mouth, and looks down at Grimmjow again. His irises are honey-gold, and his sclerae black all the way around. "But if my freak of nature thing comes back to bite us in the ass--"

Oh. Right. He's not the dam, so it seems less likely, but what if. What if -- cubs. Babies. Small defenseless _Grimmjow's_ \--

With a violent heave he flips them both into Edrad -- Kurosaki lands halfway sprawled on his lap, gasps -- and Grimmjow rolls his hips until the tip of Kurosaki’s dick catches. He clamps down with both knees to shove it in.

"Then you'd better help me murder anyone who tries to take them from me," he growls into Kurosaki's neck, and crosses his ankles over the swell of Kurosaki's ass.

Small -- fierce -- baby Kurosakis. His guts full of him, heavy with his get, the strongest fucking hollow -- strongest fucking _being_ \-- Grimmjow has ever fought against.

Or fought with.

Or -- just. 

_Kurosaki_.

He makes a noise when Kurosaki finally pushes in, finally rolls on top of him and sinks in, flesh molten-hot and his reiatsu like wildfire -- sparks and cinders, suffocating. He anchors his claws in the man's shoulder blades and arches under him, makes a noise that's a cracked growl and a guts-deep moan all at once.

Kurosaki feels so hollow but not _quite_ , something else mixed in, a little abrasive and a lot blinding-sharp, glittering. He smells -- fuck. At the last possible second Grimmjow turns his face away from his skin, presses the gritted-locked line of fangs of his mask to Kurosaki's shoulder rather than his nose, his mouth. He wants to feel him under his teeth -- his tongue -- he wants to worry at that skin, that flesh (he wants to feed, a little, but not -- not like that.) Can't let himself put teeth on the man or he'll lose the hard shove of his dick deep inside, the stretch, the -- the promise of him, the feel of. He doesn't know. His mind's going a bit already. He makes himself breathe.

He would let Kurosaki bite him back, he thinks vaguely, if -- but no, that's not on the table. He can't forget that. 

"Talk to me," he rasps, trying to climb out of the dazzled mess of his need.

Kurosaki pushes himself up on his hands to blink at him, dazed. "Wha?"

Grimmjow yanks him and his furnace chest back down. "Not you -- maybe you, I don't fucking care, someone talk to me, I--"

Hand on the back of his hand. Reiatsu like banked embers, like half-asleep volcanoes -- Edrad. He unlatches Grimmjow's claws one by one, tugs them out of the wounds they've left. He's humming quietly. 

"It's rolling you hard," he muses, and lets Grimmjow clench his hand on his fingers. Grimmjow is fighting to figure out what to answer -- banter, he can do banter -- but then Kurosaki whines in his ear and he blinks.

"Oh god," he mumbles _right against Grimmjow's collarbone_ , "never had an _audience_."

His -- his mouth is. It's a shock down Grimmjow's spine, an instinctive need to knock his teeth away from Grimmjow's neck battling it out with -- shit, it feels good. Making him shiver, adrenaline against hot breath on his neck, he. _Fuck_. He growls by rote and doesn't even know what he wants to happen.

"S' _wrong_ with the audience?"

"We could critique his technique," Shawlong says, sounding distantly amused. (He's laughing his ass off, the bastard.)

It makes Kurosaki _stop moving_. With an incensed snarl, Grimmjow rolls them both.

There. On top. Pinning him. Grimmjow's favorite position.

It's... Not. Quite. It's. 

He shivers. His back is cold. It's not quite -- he was liking it, he thinks. Buried in comforters and pillows by Kurosaki's body. It was... 

Baring his teeth, he starts riding in earnest. Kurosaki swears, a long unimaginative tangle of _shit_ and _fuck_ ; throws his head back on the pillows, an arm across his eyes, and his throat is just so unmarred. Grimmjow's hand covers it before he can set his teeth in it; he presses down a little, in revenge for being so fucking tempting.

His wrist is snatched up, caught so tight that it pops; Kurosaki rears up and bares his teeth right in his face, estigma spilling down from his hairline, dark and thick like a trail of venous blood. His reiatsu flares dark.

" _Breathplay ain't on the fucking menu_ ," he says, and it screeches under the words like a hunting hollow's scream.

And that's. That's not Kurosaki. Not -- oh. Grimmjow clamps down on his dick without thought, a burst of lust-pleasure-heat blooming up his body, all through his thighs.

"Wasn't choking you," he responds, and it's hard to breathe under his reiatsu, it's hard to find the balance between the omega lust that just wants to wriggle down on his dick and whine for more and the warrior pride that demand he doesn't bend, not even when he overstepped first. "I'm trying not to _bite_."

The dark power simmers down; the estigma doesn't fade. The cold look on not-really-Kurosaki's face thaws slowly, though. A smirk tilts his mouth up at the corner. "Yeah, we're a snack."

"Oh, fuck off," Grimmjow shoots back, and grins all teeth out, buoyed by relief.

"Yeah?" Kurosaki-not-Kurosaki slips his hands under Grimmjow's thighs, moves as if to heave him off. Grimmjow winds his arms around his neck right back, clamps down with his knees. 

" _Fuck_ off, your dick stays right here. I don't need the rest of you but this part's mine-- ah, fuck!"

Kurosaki-but-not bucks under him, laughing right in his face. And then it's -- the laughter turns less harsh and the estigma redder, but it still doesn't fade; the eyes don't go back to brown. It's just Kurosaki smiling at him in a way he never did -- in a way that feels like he could have, though, at some point, or to someone else, an expression that looks at home on his face.

Grimmjow dives to nip at that mouth before he has thought twice.

"--Whoa, boss!" "--Grimmjow, _no--_ "

Another laugh right in his mouth and it feels weird, startlingly ticklish -- Kurosaki nips back but so lightly Grimmjow barely feels the press of his teeth, and no real pain at all. Cups Grimmjow's face in both hands, mask and all, and tilts it and oh hey that's a tongue, that's. 

"Boss?" Yylfordt demands, closer than he was. Grimmjow has no brain to answer him; he just hums, and shivers run from the nape of his neck down when the tip of Kurosaki's tongue teases his palate.

Kurosaki went and put a part of himself in Grimmjow's teeth. He could -- he could shred, he could _take_ , he... Doesn't want to. He just wants to gnaw, to mouth at him like a not-really-threat and a wet, intimate caress all in one and it's strange how good it is. He vaguely knew humans and shinigami routinely put their mouths on each other but he never really thought about what it'd be like, if you removed the "you're edible" thing.

It feels decadent as _hell_. He catches himself purring; only purrs louder, drunk on it, on his heat and his Kurosaki.

"... taking it that's _not_ a problem?"

"Holy _shit_ , that's perverted."

"Daaamn, Shinigami--"

Fuck if they're not all ragging on Grimmjow and his alpha now, the bunch of assholes. He's sure they're just jealous. His purr tips into a growl in his throat; then Kurosaki breaks away, face flushed, and glowers all around, and Grimmjow snarls a protest. Guy's still holding his face so Grimmjow can't take his mouth back, and that's not okay.

"I'm gonna kiss every single one of you and _make you all like it_ ," Kurosaki threatens, cheeks gone back to scarlet. 

Hoots and laughter all around. Grimmjow can't help laughing along, even frustrated as he is. He turns his head and nips at Kurosaki's bare wrist, then licks a long stripe up the tender inside of his forearm. 

"That's somehow both gross and hot," Kurosaki observes, watching him and smiling that heated, startled-but-in-a-good-way smile. "Guess I'm lucky it's not raspy though."

"Wait until he's come a couple times and it'll be raspy," Yylfordt points out. "And you'll be damn glad you're the alpha."

"--Wha?"

It's like Di Roy can't keep himself silent and sulking a second longer because even as everyone was looking for a good way to put it he blurts out, "Dick spines!"

Kurosaki blinks like three times in a row. Shawlong continues, mild as milk, the lying fucker. "On the upside, the tail is quite convenient as a handle."

Yylfordt cackles. "Augmented bendiness isn't bad either--"

"You all need to shut the fuck up and let me get this knot, I swear if you turn him off so bad he can't tie I'm gonna murder every single one of you _personally_."

Then he fucking kisses Kurosaki again, because _fuck them,_ is why.

Slick and heated and just so nice. Hands running down his sides, careful of the tender spots -- oh right, he was wounded; he doesn't care, barely feels it. His knee's not feeling great but when he shifts his weight across Kurosaki's lap Kurosaki just tilts them both to the side, topples them into the pillows together. It's like a nest inside the nest, a soft little gap to cuddle deeper into as they fuck. Everything Kurosaki is giving him is just so goddamned decadent; he's gonna get spoiled to hell and back.

"I can't believe you purr," Kurosaki whispers, nose to nose, and smiling at him like he's mocking him, but just a little bit.

Purring, Grimmjow bites his nose. Hah.

His heat rises up again and this time he doesn't fight it back; it's all languid need and contentment, nothing to fear, to bitch about. His nest and his alpha and his pack, and the thickening knot pushing and pulling at his cunt, almost... almost...

He comes before he is knotted, clamps down in long spasms on Kurosaki's dick, hips rolling on automatic, thoughtlessly. Pleasure swelling gentle but inexorable and taking him over, every single inch of his body. He doesn't come down for an age, and then when he does he finds Kurosaki pressed tight against him, chest to chest, hips between his thighs and grinding slow and hard, panting against his collarbone with little whimpering gasps.

He's still thickening but yeah, ain't no getting him out without some pain now. Grimmjow cards his clawtips through mussed orange hair, humming in encouragement.

"Ah -- _fuck_. Grimmjow--"

"C'mon, Kurosaki," he says in his ear, all low and quiet as they rock together. He feels so _nice_ , loose and just so pleased, but there's still something missing. "Nearly there. You've got a really nice dick, you know. I'm keeping it, it's mine now."

Kurosaki snorts out a breathless laugh, face scrunched as if in pain. "Gonna be -- keeping it a while anyway--"

Grimmjow snorts back, lips quirking up, and then shivers. The knot inside him is grinding just the right way, and Kurosaki's belly rubs and presses down on Grimmjow's dick with each whisper of movement. "You wanna knot me right? Give me a cuntful of your jizz? Bet I can come two more times before you're even ready to pull out."

With something like a laughing whimper, Kurosaki comes inside him; long pulses of hot jizz, slicking him up even more -- long pulses of reiatsu, too, right into his core, flooding around the void of his hollow hole. He absorbs them without thinking, devouring the offered flow -- and it's a shock, arching his spine off the bed. For a second he can feel his forearm blades come out all on their own; he somehow thinks to fling his arms to the sides to keep them away from Kurosaki's thin skin, but it's a distant concern.

Head thrown back on the pillows, he pants, trying to figure out if he just did come again or what. It's like he got punched in the guts by pure energy. A lock of too-long hair falls across his nose; he feels for his mask -- jawbone's still there, he's not in resurrección, but it's the closest he's ever managed to get without switching entirely.

"--What _was_ that," Kurosaki asks in a choked voice.

Grimmjow blinks back, wipes chin-length (what the fuck) blue hair off his own face with a black-skinned, clawed hand. He's crackling with power and oozing with satisfaction and doesn't know if he wants to ride Kurosaki's knot until he screams or take a nap. It's a really strange feeling. "Think you fed me for the next three months."

Kurosaki lets out a long groan and drops face down right into Grimmjow's chest, slumping with every muscle. "Feels like it," he complains, muffled by his _mouth_ being on Grimmjow's _skin_. 

Grimmjow thinks about telling him to stop doing that unless they're getting kinky, because it does raise alarms in the back of his head, but he's so buzzed-horny-sated-floaty and he _knows_ Kurosaki isn't a real risk and... Ugh. Too much work. Sighing through his nose, he catches the back of Kurosaki's neck in a firm hold and decides that's enough of a counter-threat.

Kurosaki makes a small, pleased noise, and rounds his back into his grip before settling back down. Oh. Huh.

God. So nice.This is going on the record as his nicest heat in memory. Maybe he had better ones when he was a human but he can't recall much about any of those past vague impressions, and none of those felt anything like this. Just raw and fast, untrusting but necessary. Burning with equal need to get bred and fear of the exact same thing, because none of them deserved it, and he couldn't afford to... He doesn't remember what. He just knows he wanted it with the particular twist of regret that meant he knew it was a bad idea.

Shit, but he kind of wouldn't mind if he does get knocked up. Logically thinking he has no idea what he would even _do_ with a litter -- he's a fucking hollow, human-shaped or not -- but it makes something inside him shiver anyway. He's strong enough to keep them safe and fed. He's got his pack to help. He's got nothing better to do with his days. Why not?

At least there's no way the kids would be boring.

He pets at Kurosaki's nape, eyes half-closed, humming quietly. Around him Yylfordt and Di Roy are sitting, keeping an eye on the barrier even as they periodically check back with him; Shawlong is keeping an eye on Grimmjow and his stud, in case of double-crossing or Grimmjow getting a craving or whatever. Edrad too, but less warily, more amused-interested-warm. He's laying down on his side, up on his elbow. Grimmjow taps the knuckles of his free hand against the man's bulging pecs; Edrad smiles back, rueful, and nods. No touching, just appreciating. 

"Will you be studding for Edrad and Nakeem too, Shinigami-kun?" Shawlong asks from the couch. 

Kurosaki raises his head off Grimmjow's chest and blinks drunkenly. "... Uhhhm... Wha?"

"Even odds that he'll knock us into a sympathetic heat," Edrad points out. His eyes are hooded low over the glasses-looking edge of his mask and he is _definitely_ going into a sympathetic heat in the next couple hours at most. He might even be in it already, they just can't smell him yet over Grimmjow. Grimmjow growls quietly, tightens his grasp. 

"Oh hell." Kurosaki groans against Grimmjow's skin again, then pushes back against his restraining hand just long enough to turn onto his cheek and looks worriedly at Edrad. "I. Uh. I don't know. I've never helped more than one at once."

"That's what Di Roy and the betas are for," Grimmjow growls back. "I'll share you when I'm done."

"I may be _dead_ when you're done," Kurosaki replies, smiling with his eyes hooded as he looks up at him.

"Are you serious? So far that's the cuddliest fuck I ever saw him have," Yylfordt comments, sitting up past Edrad. "If it's enough to do you in then maybe we should take over now."

This time it's Kurosaki who growls, barely edged with a Menos screech. He grinds his hips into Grimmjow -- fuck, his knot is nowhere near coming down. It's like getting fisted, spreading his walls open and pressing hard up into him.

He wraps his legs tighter around Kurosaki, ankles locked over his ass; grinds back. Grins, mean and challenging, when Kurosaki pushes up on his hands to glower down at him.

"It's really been the cuddliest," he confirms, all teeth out. "If you wanna get me bred you're gonna have to work harder than that."

Kurosaki stares down at him. 

Then he gives a single snap forward of his hips, pointed and oddly no-nonsense, like he's proving a point. Grimmjow feels the point of his dick real nicely, butting against the back of his cunt like that. It hurts and yet not, brusque and intense enough to confuse his senses.

"You sound like you _want_ me to knock you up, Grimmjow."

Another push; Jesus but it shoves the whole of his guts along, or feels like, grinding at him. A wet trickle of spunk makes it out past Kurosaki's knot, trails body-hot and thick along his inner thighs, his ass. Grimmjow pants for breath, mind hazy with the thought that he's already so full he can't keep all of his alpha's load inside where it should be. Kurosaki's still coming in little pulses, he can feel him, he'll keep coming a while yet; how fucking _drenched_ is Grimmjow gonna get?

It's never gotten to him like that, being all creamed up with an alpha's jizz.

Then again, Di Roy's never made him wish he could carry _his_ children because that'd be a piece of him to keep. Maybe that's... Maybe that's it. God, he wants more.

"Yeah," he rasps out on the end of a breathless moan, gone dizzy on Kurosaki's golden eyes. "Yeah, I do."

"--oh, _fuck_ ," Kurosaki mutters under his breath, staring at him right back, and hunches over him, hips jerking forward thoughtlessly. 

Grimmjow throws his head back and purrs, and laughs, and moans, and enjoys his fucking ride. 

\--

Eventually they separate (Kurosaki's dick gliding out of him with a gush of come and Grimmjow's own wetness) and Grimmjow leans back against Edrad's wide chest, tilts his head back to brush his nose (not his mouth, not his teeth) along the edge of Edrad's jaw. Edrad's been patient but he's flushed a red barely paler than his hair and his hand moves slow and steady between thick, muscled thighs. He chuckles breathlessly right back and tilts his head out of Grimmjow's way, baring his throat. 

Grimmjow doesn't bite, because Edrad belongs to him as pack, not as a snack-to-be, and he can be polite. Even though he would enjoy the feel of skin against his lips, of flesh held in his teeth. He makes a note to gnaw on Kurosaki again later on. His fault for bringing it up.

"Yeah, come here," he offers, rolling laboriously over as he nudges Edrad down. 

Kurosaki is panting next to them, flat on his back; his eyes are closed like he's safe. ( _Like he's mine_ , says a little voice at the back of Grimmjow's head but he knows that's just the heat. He's never been someone Grimmjow gets to claim as anything but rival and prey.) Grimmjow maneuvers Edrad down on his back into the fluffiest part -- next to Kurosaki, shoulder almost touching shoulder.

"Smells nice," Edrad hums, eyes almost closed, injured arm draped over his ribs, and lets his knees fall open.

He's the one Grimmjow saw first when he barged into that basement. When he brought the last wall down and found that place that everybody had told him didn't exist, and he was just being paranoid. (Everybody but that one healer shinigami, a tall, hunched girl with grey hair, the one who sneaked away from that meeting with Harribel to talk to him. She's the only one he will spare, if she's part of the hunting squads after them. Everybody else dies.)

Wall to wall glass cages, hollows of all kinds and power levels sleeping off whatever shit had been done to them right there on bare cement floors, like animals, or dozing while wedged in the farthest corners; and just one sitting up with his legs crossed and his hands on his knees, his back straight, keeping watch.

Naked and swordless.

The _look_ on his stoic face when he recognized Grimmjow had been... 

Grimmjow had gone into resurrección without even a pause.

"Doesn't it," Grimmjow agrees, voice low, and slides his hands up the inside of Edrad's thighs, tracing the defined edges of bulging muscles. "We should bottle that shit."

Edrad chuckles, the sound rough in his throat; makes a quiet little noise of anticipation. He's got a dick befitting of an alpha his size, half-hard and oozing; the problem is he's also got the cunt to match. Di Roy's never helped him much, outside of the scent and the motion -- he's got a nice fat knot for such a scrawny little fuck, but it would take approximately three of him for Edrad to feel full. But working up to one of Grimmjow's fists is gonna take more time than Grimmjow feels like he's got before the next wave hits... Hmm.

Well, he can always pass that particular torch to someone else once they get there. Edrad's not ready to be knotted anyway. Grimmjow makes sure he pulls his claws back in before he traces the furled edge of Edrad's lips, a warning before he slips two fingers in. Edrad exhales long and mostly steady.

Kurosaki cracks an eye open, and promptly chokes. Then he jerks up on an elbow. Edrad tenses up a little, hurt arm twitching; Grimmjow presses the palm of his free hand down on his belly to keep him in place and throws Kurosaki a warning side-look.

"Are you gonna--?" Kurosaki asks, voice strangled, goggling stupidly. 

"Gonna what?"

Follows a little pantomime of flailing hands and reddening face; Kurosaki ends it with a sharp, frustrated whine and turns away. Grimmjow gives a slow blink. Edrad snorts, swallows it down, and then starts laughing his ass off, his voice booming off the walls. 

Yylfordt is next, cackling without restraint. Then Shawlong lets out a smug-ass chuckle.

"Guyyyys," Kurosaki whines, still without looking. "Are you -- are you gonna fuck him?"

... He's ridiculous. 

"With my limp heat dick? Yeah, we'll go far with that." Grimmjow pushes a third finger in, starts moving them in and out methodically. He... he's been rougher, sometimes, in the past, but right now he can't quite bring himself to wreck Edrad as mercilessly as he could. 

He wants to cuddlefuck him too. He wants to cuddlefuck all of them. His fracción. His pack. Just pet them to orgasm and shove them in a skintight sweaty pile of limbs and pleasantly tired flesh, too exhausted, too pleased to even think of tensing up. Then he wants to nestle right in the middle of them.

He doesn't remember his last heat hitting him quite that way. 

"He's gonna need an alpha for some actual fucking," he says absently, watching Edrad's huge hand fist over the comforter in an effort not to grab for Grimmjow himself. 

Di Roy uncurls from his spot by the counter, well in arm's reach of Nakeem, and starts cautiously shuffling along the far wall to get past Kurosaki.

Kurosaki lets out a low, quiet growl, staring straight at him. Grimmjow tenses up, fingers pausing, and Edrad groans and twitches trying not to roll his hips.

"What?" Di Roy snaps back, tense like a strung wire. "Grimmjow said you weren't fucking anyone else until he's done, and Edrad needs someone now." 

Kurosaki opens his mouth; closes it, opens it again only this time it's more like a grimace; it bares more teeth, too, and none of them take it as anything but a threat, a reminder. 

But Grimmjow's pretty sure it's mostly a heads-up.

Guy's gonna hit his stride on his sympathetic rut real soon, and then there won't be any talking him into not lashing out. They need to fix this now. Grimmjow doesn't care that he might not think to _eat_ Di Roy. He can break him in half just trying to shove him out of the nest, by accident.

Grimmjow just... has no idea how to fix it. His own gut reaction is to slap Kurosaki down and fuck them both at once to prove that if he wants them to share then they're damn well going to; that he's the only one who gets to be selfish in this fucking joint and -- and _Kurosaki isn't his_ , his to keep or to lead. He's not even weak enough to be properly intimidated, and...

He made them a _goddamn nest in his house_. Grimmjow hisses between his teeth. What does he _do_?

Di Roy is still hunkered down against the wall, just under the big black screen. Kurosaki has moved into a crouch, and his shoulder almost touches Grimmjow's side. He's looming over Edrad's flung-out leg; hasn't planted a hand over it yet, in between them -- that'd be a claim alright, more than just leaning across.

He probably needs some soothing beta nonsense right now but considering both of Grimmjow's betas look at his exposed back like they're mentally planting targets that's not going to happen.

Grimmjow can't bite him. He reminds himself of that as he leans close enough to bump their shoulders together, a bit harshly.

A quick flip around; a hand on the back of Grimmjow's neck, clenching tight. Kurosaki's face right before his face, foreheads pressing tight, noses bumping stupidly. 

"You're _mine_ ," Kurosaki chokes out through clenched teeth, and Grimmjow's chest does something weird, confusing.

Grimmjow's crotch does something infinitely clearer. Shit. His thighs are _soaked_.

"You're -- _my_ cubs in you. No one else's."

If Di Roy could breed him, they'd have known it a while ago, a little corner of Grimmjow's mind thinks dryly. The rest is nothing like dry, the rest is gushing and hot and even his fucking limp dick pearls precum at the tip. 

Kurosaki's other hand runs down his belly, fingers catching at the edge of his hollow hole on their way down; cups his dick and lifts it up enough to slip index and middle finger up his cunt to the second knuckle, crooking fast as if to hook him, keep him from rearing off them. Grimmjow makes a sound like a cut-off scream and a whimper-moan.

" _My_ knot in there. No one else's."

"--Ah," he says, hands clenched on Kurosaki's wrist, mind empty. "Yeah."

Yeah.

"He's yours," Kurosaki says, breathing like he's in pain against his face. His fingers are clenching and unclenching up Grimmjow's cunt. "You're mine. Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Shit. _Shit_ , he needs Kurosaki back inside him straight away. He needs him to never get _out_ again. They can live their life stuck together at the crotch now. Yeah? Sounds good. 

But under their knees there's Edrad's thigh, trembling; his scent only getting heavier in the air. The noise he makes is thin, almost silent, but it's pain all the way through.

"Di Roy," Grimmjow snaps, almost out of breath and patience and sanity. He moves into Kurosaki's space to force him to step back (chest to chest, body heat, oh.) "Di Roy, _here_."

Kurosaki growls again but more like he's in pain, looking over Grimmjow's shoulder at Edrad, still on his back, his head thrown back, his teeth gritted. So much throat, muscled and unscarred; hell, even Grimmjow's tempted. His own predation bite is still a scar on Edrad's flank, but his transformation into an arrancar distorted it out of shape and nobody can still read it as anything but a gap, a tear, nothing like Grimmjow's adjuchas maw. 

He wants. He wants his teeth in flesh, he wants to -- feel, taste, he wants to _mark_.

He wants to feed, too, but that's not... 

It's not. It's.

 _Mine_ , he thinks, and doesn't even know who he's thinking about.

"Grimmjow," Di Roy breathes out, shaky, as he approaches. Grimmjow watches him for a second, mind empty; then Edrad lets out a low, pained groan, and -- and Kurosaki winces, too, Di Roy and Kurosaki both twitch toward Edrad and then pause and stare at each other like the last moment of stillness before a kill.

"Oh, fuck this," Kurosaki growls quietly between his teeth. 

Grimmjow's reflexes are shot to shit with how hazy his head is, Grimmjow's instincts are a mess, but in this situation he knows who he should trust, he _knows_ , he's had it proved to him a hundred times across actual centuries.

Kurosaki lunges for Di Roy. Yylfordt lunges for Kurosaki.

Grimmjow grabs Yylfordt by the wrists and blocks him cold, and then gets toppled over by his and Kurosaki's momentums so that he sprawls over Edrad's leg, against -- Di Roy's hip? -- Yylfordt's eyes are wide open staring at him -- shock, disbelief, and he -- 

Grimmjow whips his head around and _Di Roy's gonna be dead_ and he's. 

He's not. He's got Kurosaki's hand fisted in the hair at the back of his head, under the helmet-mask, he's been hauled forward until he had to catch himself on his hands around Edrad's hips.

He's fine. He's fine. Kurosaki has him. It's fine. Even as Kurosaki growls low and frustrated and bone grows around his eye it's fine, even as he shifts his weight to lean on Di Roy it's fine, it's -- god, it's --

"Grimmjow!" Yylfordt snarls, trying to yank his wrists free. Grimmjow can't look away from his alphas. His alpha and his... _His_.

Kurosaki bears down on Di Roy, half leaning on his back, puts his _teeth on Di Roy's shoulder_ \--

Stops. 

Shivering, stops.

Grimmjow is shivering too, trembling with excess heat and hormones and gut-deep terror. He lets Yylfordt pull one arm free, so he can have a hand free too, to touch Kurosaki, touch Di Roy, haphazardly tapping the back of his hand against their heaving sides. Remind them to... 

Remind them.

"I -- did I freak you out?" Kurosaki asks, all quiet, head still bowed over where Grimmjow knows he put his teeth on Grimmjow's fracción. 

Di Roy makes a small, aborted noise, like something that wanted to be a whimper before he swallowed it back, or hysterical laughter maybe. Grimmjow starts breathing again.

He lets go of Yylfordt entirely; hauls himself up on his knees (it fucking hurts) to move up enough to see everyone's faces; right now he mostly sees the back of Di Roy's head and very little of Edrad, apart from the long, tanned sides of him that Di Roy's scrawny body can't block out.

"What the entire fuck," Yylfordt mutters furiously across the lot of them. "Shawlong? Shawlong, what the fuck do we--"

"He's a vasto lorde," Shawlong replies, his voice so calm and quiet Grimmjow wonders if they were meant to notice him talking. "We do nothing."

"But--"

" _Nothing_."

Grimmjow frowns, but that's. He can't even spare the attention to sort out that mess of assumptions right now. Kurosaki isn't... Shawlong sounds like they were forced into his nest, like the bad end of a survival trade, and that's not. No? What the fuck. 

There's still bone around Kurosaki's black-on-gold eye, still red estigma on his skin, but his expression doesn't match, too complicated for Grimmjow to figure out at a glance. 

"My bad," Kurosaki says, but he doesn't move. "Feeling a bit crazy right now." He pats Di Roy's shoulder, which twitches under his hand. Di Roy's visible eye rolls sharply to the side to look at Grimmjow; he doesn't dare turn his head.

Grimmjow has no fucking clue about anything at all and feels kind of halfway out of his body with lust and residual panic. He taps the side of his fist against Di Roy's shoulder ( _I'm here_ ), then leans on Kurosaki (he needs skin, he's gonna go fucking crazy without skin) and growls his irritated frustration and bites, too, right on his shoulder blade. He doesn't take flesh, but he does dig in; it'll bruise.

Kurosaki of course fails to react in a normal way and just moans. "Aw -- fuck, Grimmjow, hold on please -- fuck, hey, what's your name, did I ask your name--"

"... Edrad?" Edrad replies, blinking dazedly from the pillow pile.

"Edrad, hey." Why's his voice so soft, was it like that for Grimmjow? Even a little bit? It wasn't. What the hell? No, that's his. That's _his_ voice.

He doesn't actually _want_ it, because it's gross and cloying, like it thinks Edrad -- _actual volcano mountain Edrad_ \-- is small and precious and _weak_ , but it's still his.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay. This -- this guy's gonna take care of you. Shit, I don't remember your name either. You -- you can do it, right? It'll be fine."

It's not a huge surprise that with Kurosaki's voice going back to confused and wavery Di Roy would regain enough nerve to try to shrug him off and growl. He's never been any good at admitting it when he's outmatched. (Which. Good. Grimmjow hates quitters.) "I've been doing it for fucking centuries! The hell do you think _you're_ doing?"

A fey look on Kurosaki's face makes Grimmjow pause, distant, half-distracted and half... something more dangerous.

"Umm, right now I'm trying to _not fuck you_." Kurosaki's voice wobbles as he speaks, not very sanely. "I -- Grimmjow would still think it counts as fucking other people, right? I mean he probably meant other omegas but still -- that's still other people but I still want to fucking _mount_ you so every time you fuck someone else it's _as my proxy._ " 

Grimmjow stops breathing. That's... That... 

"I'm not feeling very okay right now, yeah? Don't... Don't fight back right now, please. Okay? Oh man, I'm only freaking you out worse. Shit. Fuck."

... Shit, yeah, he's halfway on Di Roy's back, he's. Grimmjow imagines his nice thick dick pushing up Di Roy's tiny alpha cunt and shivers. Grimmjow has fingered him once or twice, mostly to settle him down when the guy had a rut go to his head, and that. It wouldn't fit. It, oh, it _really_ wouldn't fit but. 

Grimmjow could see it, is the thing -- if they had half a century of wandering together and actual trust and Di Roy at ease with the knowledge that Kurosaki will treat him right, and god, fuck, his alpha _topping other alphas_ would. It's. _Fuck_.

But he'd bleed. Right now, Di Roy would bleed, he would fight, and then Kurosaki would -- he wouldn't break his neck, Grimmjow is (almost) sure, but Di Roy would still fight him believing every second that it's the way it's gonna end.

Can't happen. No.

"Yeah, don't fuck him," he tries to drawl, like it's a joke, but his cunt hurts like a bad cramp and he can't -- if he tears Kurosaki off and pins him down, Kurosaki's gonna fight, gonna -- it'll be bad. It'll be. No, no. What does he do? What does he -- he can't _think_.

Hand on the small of his back, along the edge of his hollow hole. Rubbing, careful. Warm. Who? 

Tall and wide at his back, looming like a wall to brace on. Safe; not competition, not angry-sparking, not pained-needy.

"Nakeem," he -- gasps, or. Chokes. Sobs. He can't.

Nakeem folding his massive bulk down as he moves to Grimmjow's side, kneels beside him. It's such a ridiculous relief when he wraps an arm around his side to tuck him close that Grimmjow goes, muscles loose and shivering. He needs to be touched, squeezed, he needs to be fucked but Nakeem can't, he's just as much of an omega as Grimmjow is. If he's not coming into sympathetic heat he might be able to get hard but that won't... 

"... Kurosaki," Nakeem says over him. Grimmjow presses his ear against the side of his chest to hear his voice buzz. He speaks so rarely. 

More voices over him, quick hissing whispers. Then more hands; moving him around, pushing and tugging. The comforter is soft against his chest; it fluffs up against his sides, warm and comfortable. The mattress is shifting rhythmically under him, just a little bit.

Someone calls his name. Huh. He should maybe... He doesn't care. He wants. It burns, smoulders in his chest and his brain feels half-cooked already. His cunt _hurts_. He rubs against the mattress, spreads his knees a little. It doesn't help. He worms a hand underneath his own belly, and then.

Body against his back, running hot. Mouth at the back of his neck, a pulse of danger but the contact only feels soft, damp, so good. A thigh pushing up between his thighs, and he spreads his knees with a strangled burst of noise that isn't even pretending it's anything but desperate.

A dick shoving its way inside him, between his cramping, too-tight walls and it hurts; he howls with it, shoves back to get more.

Teeth on his neck, arms around his waist and chest -- wrapped tight, caught, _teeth_. Mouth, hot and wet, tasting him but he's safe and held and caught, all wrapped up. So full. So right.

He forgets himself for a while. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alphas: ichigo, di roy  
> betas: shawlong, yylfordt  
> omegas: grimmjow, edrad, nakeem

Someone's touching his face, a huge hand cradling his unmasked cheek as his head rests heavy in it. Grimmjow grunts quietly, tries to talk himself into opening his eyes. There's someone lying on his back, their face resting between his shoulder blades.

He's still full, a hot length of flesh taking up all the space in his cunt. Kurosaki's knot well-caught, nudging against every single good spot with every breath the two of them take. 

They're breathing in sync. Huh. Grimmjow clenches down on him without thinking and Kurosaki groans quietly, rubs his cheek against Grimmjow's back.

Edrad's hand is the one Grimmjow is apparently using as a pillow. When he opens his eyes the man is looking at him and smirking a little, eyes hooded over the edges of his weirdly delicate mask. Di Roy is still between Edrad's thighs, hands curled in loose fists on Edrad's chest to rest his chin on as he waits out his own tie.

"Hey, boss. Alive?"

"Nope," Grimmjow rasps, and doesn't bother to lift his head. "I am the ghost of dickings past."

Di Roy chokes; Yylfordt peeks over Edrad's head. "Where the fuck did that even come from?" he asks, but he looks amused.

"Not a clue," Grimmjow replies, and shrugs it off. Happens sometimes; a reference will come out and nobody will know what it's even referring to, not even the one who said it. Nakeem knows a hell of a lot of drinking songs, for someone who doesn't speak unless prompted.

Shawlong is sitting up on the couch, all uncannily long limbs and predatory stillness, looking down at the tangled mess of them.

Looking at Kurosaki.

"Don't," Grimmjow warns quietly.

"Certainly not while he's still tied to you," Shawlong says agreeably, and that's when Grimmjow is sure Kurosaki is asleep, or he would just have pretended not to get it. "You'll probably need him another couple of times."

"Not at all," Grimmjow retorts, and tries to make it a growl; his throat is dry. "He's not a target. I don't know why you've got a bee in your bonnet about him but drop it."

Goddamn but he doesn't want to argue with Shawlong while he's still got a dick in him. Ugh. Way to ruin his afterglow. Or his... in-between glow. Mm. He rocks his hips a little bit, testing the tie. Kurosaki's knot still isn't going down.

So full. How is he supposed to be thinking about anything else.

"You took us here because we had no other choice," Shawlong says quietly. "He welcomed us, I am told, with zero suspicion or hesitation. Then he put his teeth on you and on Di Roy and tried to dominate him; and I wonder if he doesn't think he's dominating _you_ , considering all the liberties you allow him. Now I wonder. Is he going to let us leave?"

Motherf-- Grimmjow tries to push himself up on his hands and then freezes as he almost rolls Kurosaki off his back. If the guy wakes up-- 

But he doesn't seem to, just rubs his face some more and squeezes at Grimmjow's flanks, humming quietly, and settles back down. Grimmjow closes his eyes, lets his cheek fall back onto Edrad's forearm.

He doesn't want to tell them that, he doesn't want to tell _anyone_ that, but if anyone has a right to hear it they do.

"Last time I fought him," he starts, eyes closed. He can tell they're all staring at him. 

Kurosaki is breathing against his back, small puffs of warm air, so nice, so _safe_.

"I lost," he forces out. "He managed to handle his hollow side just long enough to beat my ass into the dunes and then wandered off all proud of himself to get his little friend."

They all trade frowning looks. Like they didn't even _think_ he could lose against some trash shinigami, like -- no, he doesn't know what they're thinking about, no use getting worked up about it. He exhales through his nose.

"Okay, so he didn't finish you off, but--"

" _And then_ ," Grimmjow snarls over Yylfordt, "And then _fucking Nnoitra cut me down_."

Well, they're listening now. Oh yeah, they really are. _Good_ , he thinks savagely.

" _That's_ the neck scar," Di Roy whispers. His one visible eye is wide and half mystified, half horrified through the hole of his mask as it tries to get a better look at it. "Shit, boss. He almost took your head off!"

"Almost cleaved me in fucking half, because apparently I was _trash_ to be cleared out of the way, and then he went to finish the job and _Kurosaki didn't let him_. Barely won against the Sexta Espada, exhausted, still had his own packmate to get to safety, and _still_ decided to throw down with the fucking _Quinta_ over the life of his fucking _beaten enemy_."

Collective blink. Even Edrad who's listening with his eyes closed and his skin glistening with sweat arches his eyebrows.

"... I'm gonna fight him again someday soon and _destroy_ him," he growls -- only it comes closer to a mutter. Right now, with Kurosaki asleep on his back -- _his alpha_ , Grimmjow's body sings -- he can't really work himself up like that. It's unexpectedly embarrassing. He resists the urge to turn his face into Edrad's arm to hide. "In the meantime... Just treat him like he's Nelliel, only less annoying."

"Huh," Yylfordt says after a long moment. "Weirdass prissy ' _rules of engagement'_ , but at least not a hypocrite about them?"

"Basically."

"You guys realize I'm gonna tell her you said that, right?" Kurosaki mumbles against his skin. Everyone jumps, Grimmjow included.

"--Fuck. How long you been awake for?" If he heard about -- if he heard Grimmjow admitting to... Shit. Of course Kurosaki knows he saved him, he was there, but Grimmjow _hates_ that it happened. Hates that he was so weak, so _pitiful_ that Kurosaki _needed to_. He told himself he wasn't gonna bring it up again unless it was while he's demanding his rematch.

Won't be a rematch any time soon, though, will there? Not after this.

It feels pretty shitty, no lie.

"Mnh... 'Destroy him'? I think." Kurosaki smiles against his skin, still cuddled close and his body loose with trust. "You can try."

"I'm gonna do more than try, you little shit, I'm gonna take off your horns and keep them as a _trophy_."

He's expecting -- he's not sure. A return volley of trash talk? A reminder that right now Kurosaki has him bent over and stuffed full of his spunk? Kurosaki just chuckles. "Yeah, they're pretty sweet, huh."

... Pfft.

"Idiot."

Grimmjow can see everyone calming down, and then Kurosaki goes and puts his mouth right on the nape of his neck. Grimmjow's whole body shudders, cunt clamping down, back arching -- fuck, openmouthed slick warm _teeth_ \-- 

Yylfordt and Di Roy growl; Shawlong -- the hiss of a blade being drawn from its sheath. Grimmjow is stiff with contrary instincts, hands clenched on the sheets near his ribs, frozen in the second before pushing himself up, thrusting back, fighting free. He looks up with eyes wide to find Shawlong's face and Kurosaki rolls his hips -- just a little bit but there's no way Grimmjow can miss it, and it's -- _fuck_. Why is it good? Why is it _better_ when he's _freaking out, what's wrong with him, he can't_ \--

"Umm, everyone?" a voice -- Kurosaki-but-not -- calls out from the staircase. "I'm coming down, can someone be generous enough to cover Ichigo's white ass? I don't want to go blind."

Kurosaki freezes over him and then pushes himself up on his hands. "Oh my god, Kon, _fuck_ you. What the hell do you even want?!"

Grimmjow shakes his head quickly, breathes in deep and bracing to clear his head. Now the 'I am going to _eat_ that son of a bitch' looks are shared equally between Grimmjow's stud and the face peeking out warily from the staircase.

"Um, _your_ body is being a pain about missing breakfast, it's eleven AM and it's _pissed_ , excuse me for not wanting to deal with that bullshit. Why are you so hungry all the time? It's not like you're still growing up."

Grumbling, Kurosaki snatches up a comforter and pulls it up over the two of them. The glimpses Grimmjow can catch of his face are pretty pink, even as he fusses tucking the fluffy edges close to Grimmjow's shoulders. "Excuse you, I am."

The body pads cautiously out, throwing the lot of them quick, wary looks. "Not at almost twenty you're not. Or only sideways. Uh, should I... come back later, or? Only I don't know how long your next round is gonna last."

Kurosaki huffs his annoyance, still propped up on his hands. Cold air gusts in between them, cooling Grimmjow's sweat. "I guess we weren't busy right now."

The body hesitates, then slinks along the wall toward the kitchen corner, watching Shawlong and Yylfordt especially warily. Half of Shawlong's blade is still out of its sheath; Grimmjow hisses, teeth bared, gives him a quick furious look to put it away before Kurosaki notices, because the body sure as shit has noticed. 

Shawlong hums his acknowledgement, eyes tracing Kurosaki's face thoughtfully, but Grimmjow can see from the corner of his eye that the guy is watching his body with his lower lip jutting out in a sulk. Shawlong glances over there, too (turning his head too slowly, too cautiously not to still be in pain.)

"So... Kon-kun, was it?"

The body's head pops out of the white box, over the counter. "Uh, yes?"

"If you don't mind, what _are_ you exactly?"

"Oh." The body blinks. It looks just as dumb as Kurosaki, but in a weirdly distinct way, like his eyes droop more at the corners maybe. The thoughtful pout isn't quite the same either. 

It rakes them with another quick glance, and then grins like an asshole. "I'm an artificial soul that Ichigo kidnapped to do his bidding."

"--Hey!"

The body cackles.

"You ungrateful bitch," Kurosaki mutters, half-seriously. "I ought to take back my body right now." The body cackles some more, turning aside to rummage through the cupboards.

"As soon as you take your dick back from this arrancar-san, sure."

"... Oh damn, yeah." Groaning, he turns his attention to the back of Grimmjow's head. Grimmjow cranes his neck to arch an unimpressed eyebrow. "You'll probably kill me, won't you."

Grimmjow doesn't think Kurosaki has a goddamn clue what that amused, casual disrespect from a subordinate does to the level of tension in the room. Then again he acts like he hadn't noticed it rising in the first place, even if Grimmjow has no idea how. Nobody's pussy is that good.

"I'll totally murder you," he drawls, faking indifference. Even now it still feels right and warm to be full of him, huddling sated together, to feel the tiny trickles of jizz making it past his tie and know that there is so much more still trapped in. He's starting to feel tiny sparkles of desire and knows his heat is going to rev back up soon, but he still doesn't want Kurosaki out of him before it's time to fuck again.

Even if the asshole is still pressed against his back _right_ in his blind spot, breathing against the back of Grimmjow's fucking neck, which nags at him non-fuckin-stop.

"Might spare you if I get a Kurosaki sandwich in return though. Hey, artificial soul, do you fuck?"

He razzes it first because he knows his fracción are gonna start testing it next and if it's Kurosaki's that would be kinda fucking rude. And they're too tense to be chill about it; they'd go too far.

Kurosaki and the body both splutter. Di Roy snickers first, and then Yylfordt smirks, long and toothy, flicks his waterfall of hair over his shoulder with deliberate showiness. 

The body grins back, stiff and flushed. "Haha. Ha. In theory! But I, uuhh. Honestly, you guys kind of terrify me?"

Yylfordt predictably smirks wider, flattered. Shawlong smiles, mouth closed and eyes like scalpels. Grimmjow tries to figure out why someone would ever admit that in such a casual way.

Then again. Kurosaki's right here. Strongest _and_ they're guests in his nest. Ain't like anybody will seriously try him.

"I can't believe you're propositioning him when I'm right here," Kurosaki says grumpily, rolling his hips just once to make his point. Grimmjow purrs, mocking, and rocks back on his knot.

"Hey, there's been times when six of them was barely enough. I'm planning ahead here."

"But _him!_ "

"What's the problem, Kurosaki, think you won't measure up?"

He grumbles, crossing his forearms across Grimmjow's shoulder blades and turning his face away sulkily. Grimmjow snorts.

It's still odd, expecting to be cuffed or nipped at -- a friendly-looking way to assert dominance -- and instead getting... this. Whatever it is. He never knows which one it'll be with the guy, if he'll push back with all his weight or show his belly -- all the while believing fully that Grimmjow could, but _won't_ , take him up on it. Grimmjow can't settle down.

"No but seriously thanks for the invite but even if sheer terror wouldn't wilt Little Ichigo into nothingness, scents kind of do nothing for me. Wasn't like we were made to take the bodies on joyrides."

"You were made," Shawlong replies, slow and measured. "By who?"

Kurosaki snorts. The body heaves a sigh, making a show of picking thoughtfully at its food and trying to hide how it helps it not look at any of them. "Shinigami Research and Development institute!"

... Yeah, Grimmjow is pretty sure that's the guys who had the torture basement.

Yylfordt sneers, shoulders gone tight. "Oh, fucking _figures_." 

"Auxiliary support and body-movers in case of stuff going down on this plane you can't endanger real people for! A hundred percent fake and well-programmed, fit for all your impersonnational needs."

"Then it turned out they'd managed to make _actual people_ ," Kurosaki says when the body falters, and he sounds tense, a bit angry. Grimmjow's shoulders tighten by reflex before he can register that he's not angry at anyone in the room. 

The body hums carelessly, shoves a handful of... stuff in its mouth, and grins with it hanging from its teeth. "Maybe I'm just faking being real _really well!_ "

"Kon, nobody on _Earth_ would think to fake your level of obsession with breasts. To everyone's greatest chagrin you are completely a real boy. Now holy shit are those pickles on _brioche_? What the hell are you putting in my body? It's disgusting."

"Shut your whore mouth! It's great. And how can you be into anyone without breasts?! What do you put your hands onto and squeeze?!"

This is the stupidest conversation Grimmjow has ever been forced to witness, and there have been some _serious_ contenders during the most boring parts of their long adjuchas desert trek. He's not even sure they're doing it deliberately to distract his men. Actually, he's pretty sure they aren't. 

A moment of silence. Yylfordt's and Di Roy's eyes ping-pong between Kurosaki and his chatty corpse. Grimmjow fucking martyrs himself by staying put and waiting for the dumbassery.

Then two hands settle deliberately on his chest, palms covering his nipples, and clench even more pointedly. 

Yeah, he isn't surprised when everybody starts laughing their asses off. Mouth a flat line, he stares down at Kurosaki's hands, busy holding his tits like a really friendly bra. 

"I'm sorry," the body says, face strained as it somehow contains its own laughter. "No offense meant to your boyfriend, Ichigo, but the redheaded gentleman next to him is _barely_ approaching my chesticular standards as it is."

Cackling like a hyena, Di Roy slaps a hand down on Edrad's bulging pec and honks it. Edrad cuffs him, rolling his eyes. Grimmjow lets out a long sigh as he meets Shawlong's eyes to exchange a 'those fucking stupid kids' look.

Then he, maybe, sort of snorts a little. It's not a laugh. It's just breathing a little hard, or something.

And then he flips the both of them over like pancakes, crushing Kurosaki under his weight. Kurosaki oofs, the wind knocked out of him. Grimmjow sits up astride his hips, knowing he's crushing some delicate areas and _really not caring_. His stud's dick has been softening some during the idiocy olympics; Grimmjow clenches on it, just to make the man underneath him whimper. 

(Predictably, Yylfordt and Di Roy start laughing even harder. Edrad chuckles.)

"Okay, if you ain't participating, get the fuck out."

He dismounts. Kurosaki's dick feels a mile long slipping out of him and yet is gone too soon -- and then comes the flood dripping down his thighs. Aw fuck, the pillows. No, wait, most of it splattered on Kurosaki. He puts a hand on the guy's knee to keep him down, grimacing as he looks around for --

"Oh, thanks, Nakeem."

It's his torn jumpsuit. Mneh. Good enough. He wasn't putting it back on anyway. He mops haphazardly across Kurosaki's hips and up the inside of his own thighs. 

Kurosaki makes a whimpering noise. Grimmjow cranes his neck to look at him. "What?"

He's all flushed. It looks... Kind of appealing. Grimmjow wants to make it worse, to watch him splutter. It's weirdly fascinating that such a self-assured guy can turn into such an awkward mess at the drop of a hat.

He arches an eyebrow at Nakeem, who blinks back slowly and glances at his hips, and oh, hey, he did give the guy a bit of a show there. Didn't he.

Next thing he arches is his hips, just a little. 

"Don't _tease_ me," Kurosaki pleads, both hands on his face. 

("I'm... gonna go sort out my socks," the body says high-pitched and awkward, and Yylfordt goes, " _Aw,_ " both mocking and flirting. The body fucks off twice as fast after that.)

(Yeah, Grimmjow should probably not allow Yylfordt to fuck the artificial soul anyway, whether in Kurosaki's body or not. He really doesn't think it can handle him.)

He returns his attention to the inside of the nest. "Does he honestly think that'll work?" Di Roy is asking from the corner of his mouth, propped up on one elbow on Edrad's chest as he watches the Kurosaki show.

"Who knows," Shawlong muses back. "Maybe today is the day Grimmjow discovers pity." 

" _I hate you all so much_."

"Hey, hey, hey. I _can_ pity people. S'totally a feeling I still have."

"But never use," Shawlong returns, smirking faintly. Grimmjow smirks back. 

"Wouldn't wanna damage it. It's gotta be worth something to trade back."

" _So, **so** much_," Kurosaki whimpers, and drags a pillow to cover his crotch; as if anybody here hasn't gotten a good look at his dick already when it was in its more interesting configuration and also going in and out of Grimmjow's cunt. 

Generous and well-sated, Grimmjow picks up another pillow and drops it on his face. Kurosaki splutters, batting it off to stare at him in disbelief. 

Grimmjow throws another one, and a third and fourth, and then lets himself fall across them in a good, luxurious sprawl. 

"--Oof! Grimmjow what the fuck, you're heavy!" comes muffled from his admittedly kind of lumpy throne. Grimmjow cackles a little bit, and has himself a long, lazy stretch.

At no point does the man under him try to shove him off.

He turns onto his front, staring at the flushed face emerging from the pillows, orange hair in disarray and mouth twisted in a sulky, half-serious pout. His... rival, prey, reluctant ally. His stud, convenient and temporary. His personal shinigami.

Beside them Di Roy has moved off Edrad, but Edrad's already got a hand between his legs again, moving slow and steady. Shawlong has a hand on his shoulder and is whispering quietly in his ear. Behind them Nakeem doesn't speak, but his eyes are fixed on them and the minute shifts of his weight on the futon would be pained grinding for anyone else. 

"Gonna stretch my legs," he decides all at once. It feels wrong to leave the nest when he's not _done_ but it feels wrong to monopolize his alpha when Grimmjow has his whole pack to care for, too, and he just really wants a better idea of the terrain around them already; it itches at the back of his brain that he settled them down somewhere he didn't know front to back. "Hey, Kurosaki, you mind giving Nakeem a ride?"

Kurosaki blinks, mouth opening a little, and his head turns to look at Nakeem. Nakeem gives a blink, hands clenching slowly on his knees.

"Oh -- _oh_."

"No?"

He looks so _startled_. Well. Grimmjow did stake his claim pretty vocally earlier. "No, I -- I mean. Sure. I thought you didn't want to, uh, are you done?"

Grimmjow pushes himself upright, standing with his weight settled on both legs, even the one that aches. "No. But I can wait."

He spent so damn long thinking about Kurosaki looking up at him like this, sprawled defenseless and exhausted on his back at Grimmjow's feet. So many of his quiet moments between training and sleep, soothing himself with this, since he had nothing else left -- just the win; the moment after the win. The enemy who had dared to spare him, to save him, being forced to acknowledge that he was at Grimmjow's mercy now. 

Sometimes he saw himself tearing into him anyway, rage and frustration boiling up, eradicating the last relic of that desperate, pitiful time. Sometimes he would just snort and walk away, head high, prouder than he imagined at being crowned king of Hueco Mundo in truth. Sometimes -- rarely, disconcertingly -- he just saw himself staring down, waiting until the last, real surrender, and then jeering until Kurosaki found the strength to try again, to chase _his_ back for once. 

The dazed eyes and panting breath he had never imagined would be for that reason. 

... He had never really thought of Kurosaki staring straight up at his bare snatch either. 

Heh.

"Um. Grimmjow?"

Kurosaki is trying to sit up, to get to Nakeem, only Grimmjow is still standing with his feet on both sides of his hips. Grimmjow helpfully steps back. 

He can't go far before his hand is caught. Blinking, he looks back down. Kurosaki's looking up at him, trying to seem casual, and Grimmjow has no clue what he's hiding behind that. 

"There's probably still food on the counter, if you want to try it." He drops his hand. "Uh, that was all. I was gonna ask you to get dressed if you're gonna go in front of the windows but I'm almost sure nobody can see ghosts in the neighborhood anyway, so. Have fun?"

Grimmjow can't help snorting. "Damn straight I will."

He wanders off to the counter. His legs are weak, wobbly -- whether from being chased for weeks or getting thoroughly laid he doesn't even know. The food is... 

It's always odd, eating those weirdass shinigami things. Tousen wanted some _culture_ papered over the reality of what they were, so all the Espadas at least got to taste what passes for snack food in the Seireitei, but it's still kind of weak reishi-wise, and the flavors are... distracting. Interesting, in small doses, but too often too much.

Also he doesn't know how to feel about the fact that biscuits have never been someone you needed to run down first, to prove better than.

"Need me to do a poison test for you?" 

Yylfordt is smirking. Did the asshole spend two minutes watching him watch the food? Grimmjow shoves the whole plate into his chest edge first, and then steps through the half-assed barrier of chairs without another word. 

He just... he wants Kurosaki to take good care of Nakeem. He wants to be right next to them to make sure. Offer advice. Feel them up some.

But that's _his_ \-- alpha. Shinigami. Person. 

It's fucking annoying. He's been without them too long, lost the habit of sharing, and he has definitely forgotten how to deal with integrating a new pack together, how to balance expectations and wishes and commitments. (Then again back then _he_ was the newcomer, wasn't he.)

He drifts around the room, looking at things, catching glimpses. Over the back of the couch he can see Shawlong's back and the sliver of sword still out of its sheath, the top of Yylfordt's head. Kurosaki down to the chest as he sits up, talking earnestly and too quietly to hear. His arms are moving, but Grimmjow can't see what he's doing exactly. Probably some petting. He's pretty big on that, from what Grimmjow remembers of their calmer moments.

Fuck, it feels like he's running from them. He keeps moving around the room until he's behind the couch, tapping the back to alert Shawlong, though he knows the man is aware of him already.

Nobody else seems to be -- his fracción gives him quick flickers of glances, noticing him and immediately moving back to the center of the nest. Kurosaki doesn't, concentrating on the omega in his lap, on the other alpha next to them. 

Di Roy is in the middle of an oddly quiet tirade about how to touch Nakeem properly -- sitting up, and not in arm's reach, but legs crossed at the ankles instead of ready to jump, as if fucking two omegas side by side has started to convince him that there won't be a fight over the third one.

"Okay, okay. You'll stop me if he feeds me bullshit, yeah? I don't want to make it weird."

Kurosaki has Nakeem's thick thighs splayed open across his lap, and as he pumps his own dick back to life his other hand is pressing palm-down on Nakeem's crotch, the tips of his fingers curling inside his cunt. The heel of his hand is keeping Nakeem's dick trapped, working him up. 

"Nah, he does like it," Grimmjow offers, voice detached, not sure how to take Kurosaki's arched eyebrows as he finally looks up at him. "Now, you squeeze mine or Edrad's dick while we're in heat and we'll punch you in the face. You're weird, Nakeem."

Nakeem hums a distracted agreement. His visible eye is almost entirely closed, the half of his face visible past the mask dotted with sweat. "Could be weirder."

It's Kurosaki who prompts for more, "Yeah?", leaning over Nakeem encouragingly. It looks almost silly; Nakeem's taller and wider and heftier by all possible metrics and besides him Kurosaki looks almost as much like a toothpick as Di Roy does. And yet it's just... Protective, but nicely. Like not only he's not gonna hurt him but he's not gonna let anyone else either, and where the _fuck_ is Grimmjow's brain going.

Of course he won't. It's his whole schtick. It's not _special_.

Wasn't special for Grimmjow either.

Nakeem says nothing for a while, chin-length hair haloed out across the pillows; then he glances up at the couch; at Grimmjow. "Weirder..."

That's the face of 'I had a thought about this but expressing it is so much effort.' He snorts. "Spit it out." 

A mild, 'well, you asked for it' blink. "I could enjoy getting bitten."

... Why is there not a single member of his fracción that's not a total asshole.

"Why is that weird?" Kurosaki asks, looking confused and a little offended about it, but everybody is too busy laughing their asses off to answer, and then Nakeem starts rocking his hips into him and Grimmjow doesn't actually want to see that -- not right now.

Maybe later. Later it'll be hot. Later he'll approve. But he still feels too restless. He taps Shawlong's shoulder, tilts his head back. "Can you walk?"

The frown on Shawlong's narrow face is not happy. For a moment he says nothing; thinking it through, you'd think, but probably just wrestling with his pride really. "... Not far."

"I'm gonna check out the rest of the floor. Come with me."

It's not a suggestion because he's not in the mood for another round of 'but we can't trust him though' in eyebrow-speak. Shawlong stares at him, eyes narrowed in thought, and then nods and pulls himself up.

He almost swoons back down. They're not getting attacked right now so Grimmjow lets him manage that on his own, and the off-balance tilt of his body away from where the mask is missing its sideway point. Edrad and Yylfordt are staring at them too, eyebrows knit, and -- oh, Edrad was probably planning for a round with one of them, but they can't do that and still have someone keep an eye on Kurosaki. 

"Be right back," Grimmjow says, terse and quiet, and turns around to go.

The corridor behind the staircase is dark, but short. He leaves the door open so he'll hear if anything happens. He pretends not to see the way Shawlong leans on the wall as he follows.

In the next room a whole wall is glass opening onto the street, with a few shitty-looking chairs arranged in a line along it; there's a counter. He wanders behind it, seeing a lot of papers and gadgets he doesn't have a clue about. A smaller screen, dark. The floor is all cold tiles and feels nice against bare feet. Another door -- he tries the handle, but no dice. Hm.

"What did you want to talk about?"

Yeah, he'll try to ghost through and check what's locked up later. He turns; Shawlong is bracing with one elbow on the countertop and he looks more sallow than usual, but still closed-off, wary. Wary of him. It's pissing him off a bit. (He deserves it. After that thing with Di Roy, he deserves it.)

"Need you to lay off Kurosaki. I told you already." 

"Oh?"

That fucker can make the blandest little noise sound like ' _are you naturally stupid or just brain damaged_ ,' can't he.

"Yes, fucking _oh_. I don't know what the fuck you think you could do anyway," Grimmjow spits out. "I can't beat him, Ulquiorra couldn't beat him, he fucking did Aizen in and then he turned around and did _Yhwach_." Fuck it; he starts to pace. It's that or shoving Shawlong in the chest to express how fed up he is and he can't do that; Shawlong's too injured and Grimmjow can't handle laying his hands on him, not just yet. Not when he was so sure he had lost him again just yesterday.

"Yhwach," Shawlong repeats slowly, and tries his damnedest not to look impressed or discomfited or whatever that pinched expression is trying to clench down onto. "I heard the name in passing in the labs but the context wasn't clear."

Grimmjow stares at him, waiting for him to stop being stupid.

"... You said it like that Yhwach was stronger than Aizen."

Grimmjow lets out a humorless bark of a laugh. "He was the son of the actual Soul King and wanted to dethrone his old man and fuck up all of the universe," he bites out, "and apparently he could mess with _reality_. Don't ask me how that works, I never got a clear idea, but he was..."

That type of power is not something Grimmjow is wired to understand. Strength, yes, speed and damage, they're his thing. Even ramped up to Earth-breaking extremes, he gets it. Snapping your fingers and compelling your own choice of future to come to be, that's... It's just not fucking right.

"They call him god-killer now," Grimmjow says, quieter, and hates having to say it. "The shinigami call Kurosaki god-killer and most of them pretend they're joking but _they are not that far off the mark_."

His stomach twists, or maybe his womb or whatever, hot less with want than with shame. That's not the Kurosaki he wants. Not the untouchable, eerie beyond-human being, drifting away into incomprehensible lands. He just wants the tough little bastard who got in his face with his sword bared. He doesn't care if Kurosaki does get strong enough to break the planet in two at some point, he'll just have to catch up. But he got a real shitty feeling from spying on gossipping rabble, like Kurosaki's not some guy anymore but a motherfucking benevolent deity, already a half-step away from the time when he was one of them. No. Grimmjow refuses this.

But there's still something to the thought that gives his body pangs of desire. It's nauseating. Fucking biology.

He lifts his head to look at Shawlong again and, yeah, good job, he managed to make things worse.

"Jesus _fucking_ christ." He runs a hand through his tangled, sweat-glued hair, tilting his head back in frustration. "Just -- sit down. It's fucking _fine_. I shouldn't have told you that."

"That the Vasto Lorde hosting us also factually counts as a demigod? Pardon me; a demigod- _killer_." Shawlong doesn't sit. Or lean on the wall, or anything, even though he looks three angry breaths away from fainting in a rage. "You think you _shouldn't have told me that_. Grimmjow _-sama_ , what _happened_ to you in the last -- _five_ years?"

"Four."

He's white-faced with contained fury and pain, and his sharp-boned jaw doesn't unclench for a single syllable. "How do you not _understand_ what you're _saying_?"

Grimmjow is just so damned tired.

"... Sit," he says again, and hauls himself up on the counter to sit first, legs dangling and shoulders bowed.

A couple of seconds pass by before Shawlong does, dragging a chair against the wall so he won't have his back to the window.

They stare each other down for a few seconds longer; then Grimmjow sighs.

"I don't have a clue how to explain him to you," he says quietly. "He's not... He pisses me off. Kinda hate him."

Shawlong doesn't answer, just arches his visible eyebrow, unimpressed. Grimmjow scowls, trying to find a better track.

"It's not like making nice with Aizen. Like how he would smile at you and you could tell any answer you gave was gonna be wrong, and he was gonna have fun punishing you for it. And you just had to figure out what was the least bad option, trying to guess what he wanted."

"Mmh."

"You remember," he prods, nettled by Shawlong's dismissive lack of reaction.

"It was last month for me," Shawlong informs him, cold as ice. "Of course I remember." 

"You got a grievance with Kurosaki, and you can punch him in the face for it, and if it really was his fault there's a good chance all he'll say is 'yeah, that's fair.'" 

Shawlong's eyes narrow; looking for the trick, he's sure, but there's no trick and that is honestly the part that's the real mindfuck.

Grimmjow gives a quiet snort. "Not if he's protecting people; he won't let you make it through. But he won't kill you for it either. I don't even know how many people total he has killed in his life but it's probably in the single digits, and I'll bet you Pantera they all had it coming."

He falls silent there, letting Shawlong think it through.

Not... very long, he can't; he hates knowing his second in command, his beta, distrusts his -- whatever Kurosaki is to him. Grimmjow brought them to him because that was the safest place he could think of. Kisuke would have hidden them; but he has his own shit to hide, his own pack to protect, and when the chips are down he's not... he's just not as strong, and.

Yeah, Grimmjow barely thought about that possibility. He thought 'only place left is the Living World' and then he was tearing a path open to that fucking banal, boring house he has never personally been to.

"If one of you -- was injured," he tries, feeling for the shape of what he needs to say with each slow, cautious word, "back then, and the rest of us needed to go. I'd stash you with Nelliel, or Harribel, or Starrk. And I'd fucking owe them, and they'd collect, but that's it. I don't think... I don't think Kurosaki would even think to ask for anything back. Just if he goes to war again, don't stand in his way. That's as far as... It _pisses me off_ , I _want_ to pay him back and _move on_ , but he'd just say 'that's just normal,' or ask for stupid shit in return like don't talk shit about his trash weakling friends. I don't _get_ why, but I do. Just can't fucking word any of it. Just--"

He waves a hand aimlessly, trying to draw the shape of his thoughts if he can't say them, but it's not any more useful than actual words.

"Hm."

Grimmjow growls tiredly. ' _Hm_.' Fucker.

"And the fact that you really want him to fuck your brains out has no bearing on this?"

Grimmjow stares, head rearing up. Shawlong is making an expression like he's not judging either way but Grimmjow knows _that's_ a lie. Shawlong judges like it's a world-class competition. 

"Do you think I knew that before _this morning_?"

Okay, now _that's_ a judgy look. Which. Grimmjow can understand it; he's been pretty intense about how much he enjoys the guy's dick today. 

Grimmjow can understand it, but it still makes him growl.

"I wanted to _fight_ him! He was a scrawny brat the first time we met, barely half-grown, you think I wanted to ride that?"

"I'm starting to wonder!" Shawlong snaps back, teeth bared. 

Grimmjow stares, slowly straightening his spine. He can tell when Shawlong checks himself, figuring out he may have overstepped, but now he's angry too.

"His pack _killed all of mine_ and you're in my face right now saying maybe I wanted to figure out if he had a knot to ride instead of taking care of that," he says, voice low, tightly controlled. "We went out six of us and I came back alone and _wasn't allowed to kill them all for it,_ and you're saying I was _thinking with my cunt_."

Shawlong's face tightens. "Grimmjow..."

"Do you think I was _lying_ , saying I hated him?"

"... No. My apologies."

"So maybe when I say _we can fucking trust him_ , we can fucking _trust him_."

Sighing, his second in command relaxes into the back of the chair. "Very well."

They spend a few seconds in silence, and then the man chuckles under his breath, just the ghost of a smirk on thin lips. 

"It does sound like you somewhat minded us being dead," he muses, and Grimmjow groans, half-heartedly looking for something to throw at his head.

"I cared that the lot of you were such an embarrassment. The second my heat is done I'm going to train you all into the ground. No more getting tricked by shitty shinigami, you hear me? That's the last fucking time."

"Of course, Grimmjow-sama."

"And you personally get to be the training dummy."

"I expect nothing less, Grimmjow-sama."

Grimmjow can't help snorting. Asshole.

The lot of them only ever call him -sama when they're around Aizen and he'd have a cow if they weren't being _proper_ , or when they're reminding outsiders to show their goddamned Espada some respect. Private use is sarcasm by about ninety-nine percent.

None of them need that bullshit ass-licking fawning to know exactly where they stand.

"... So how did you go from hating Kurosaki-kun to..." Shawlong waves his hand vaguely at the walls. "Coming to him like that? Did something happen against Yhwach?"

Grimmjow scowls. It still pisses him off, apparently. "I fucking _wish_. He'd promised me a rematch and I barely got to see him face to face for five minutes, and he was crowded up with his trash packmates for all of it. And Nelliel kept getting in my -- _oh_."

Oh, no no no. Nope. Oh, fuck this, she was wrong. Even if _now_ she's right it's a pure coincidence and he is never ever telling her a word about this. He is not vindicating that delusion of hers.

Shawlong gives a slow blink. "Nelliel-sama was...?"

"She's always all over him like she's a breath away from going into heat on his lap, and she -- no. _Fuck_ this. I don't care anyway, I got him and she didn't--"

Oh. Wait. The fuck did he just say.

His face feels hot. It's got to be the heat spiking up again. Can't be the fact that he just admitted to Shawlong that Nelliel had him pegged as a rival omega for Kurosaki's knot even back then and _she was right all along_.

Damn straight he got Kurosaki, damn straight that's _his_ alpha, but not -- not for the long term, it's just one heat hookup, doesn't mean shit, doesn't mean Grimmjow wants him longer than that and... he is trying to lie to himself and doing it very badly.

But he can't keep him. People belong to Kurosaki; Kurosaki doesn't belong to people.

"All I had to say," he barks, hopping off the counter. The smooth top drags unpleasantly against his bare skin. He has a sudden pang of want for Kurosaki's hands, his stupid soft skin and his calluses. But Kurosaki will still be with Nakeem, probably not even knotted yet. "Go back, I'll check out the rest of the floor. Give Edrad a ride or something."

Shawlong doesn't stand. Grimmjow gives him an irritated look.

"You want him to join us." he says, and the look on his face is so damned _wry_.

Grimmjow turns away. Fleetingly, he wishes this were a place he could trash. His tentatively optimistic mood just fucking plummeted. "Doesn't matter, does it?"

He gets the last word by the simple expedient of walking through that last locked door, a very slow and tedious exercise in not exploding the cheap wood into a pile of toothpicks. It doesn't take him instantly out of sight or hearing range as he would have preferred but he does need to concentrate enough that he can pretend he didn't hear the quiet, vaguely despairing sigh or the uneven drag of his beta's feet.

The room he finds behind it is underwhelming as shit, but on the upside he's alone in it. 

Ugh.

He stands for a minute, looking around with teeth clenched for a distraction. There's a small picture of Kurosaki Senior gathering his children to his bosom, the three of them looking especially small and wimpy; the scowl on his Kurosaki's face is identical for all that the cheeks are not. It's mildly amusing, but disturbing too. When the fuck was his beast of an alpha this undercooked? The girls are barely bigger than Nelliel's child form, pudgy and frail. After a second he decides that he hates it. 

He sits on the weird padded table-bed thing, dropping the picture back onto the little desk in the corner. Nothing else catches his attention; it's all human tools and papers blathering on about human illnesses. 

His skin feels a bit gross; he briefly wishes for a good sand dune to roll into, to scrub all the stale sweat and dried spunk off him. Maybe water, even, one of Aizen's prissy little heated pools with a thousand rules of use. Aizen ain't here, so Grimmjow would just jump in as he is, float around for a bit, just to feel the full-body pressure and the wet and the warmth. He wonders if Kurosaki's got one, but surely the house is too small for such a waste of space. It's gonna be spit-dampened rags for him, no doubt, but that... Not yet. Not worth the hassle if he's gonna get gross again in thirty minutes. He raises a hand to his nose, gives it a guilty, frustrated sniff. Mngh. He doesn't want to scrub his alpha's scent off him yet.

His temporary alpha's scent. It'll be gone soon enough. 

... His alpha, who's busy fucking someone else, but that's not even the real issue, is it?

He's in the middle of his heat and he left the nest and all that asshole had to say was "yeah, okay." Any knothead off the streets could drop by and... yeah, he'd kill them if they tried it, and yeah, he'd have killed Kurosaki if he tried to boss him around like that.

Stupid fucking instincts. Of _course_ Kurosaki only cares about the heat sex and not about making sure Grimmjow doesn't get knocked up by someone else -- that's the deal. It's as far as it goes. 

Okay. There's no reason to stay here. He could just stop sulking and go demand some attention in the nest -- get Yylfordt in on it or something. Maybe -- not Di Roy, but. Hrrm. Yeah, he kinda wants to grab Yylfordt by the hair and kiss him some, just to see how he'll react. Bet the guy will snarl and then attempt to out-kiss him, except he'll actually use his teeth and then Grimmjow can nip him back and this is... really close to _nope_ territory, but also potentially really... Really yes. 

He wants to put his mark on them again. Might as well start with the braggart who'll want to prove to Grimmjow he ain't even a little bit _concerned_. 

Yeah. Better to think about him, about them; not so much about Kurosaki, about the grip on Grimmjow's wrist that he released a second later, easy as you please. It's just the hormones. It'll pass.

He stands, stretches his arms over his head, energized and horny all over again, and behind him on the other side of the house's outer wall the kido barrier rips in two.

The greasy feel of the reiatsu that seeps in has him bursting into a sonído instantly. The door explodes into shards; he's already in the corridor, he's bursting into the main room -- clipping a wall, sending shards of bricks showering out -- and Kurosaki's head jerks up at his brutal entry but everybody else is already jumping up and bristling and _Grimmjow needs his sword_ \-- 

The whole wall the nest butts on crumbles to debris and dust, burying the end of the couch, and Pantera with it.

"Ahh, what's this, what's this? These hormonal levels are going to interfere with my baseline readings. How ridiculous; incomplete souls behaving as if they might still reproduce."

The street outside past the shredding barrier is lined with shinigami trash. In the middle, looking thoughtful and sporting not a single scratch from Grimmjow's deadliest attack, the freak show who held his people prisoner stands unconcerned, looking down at some handheld little thing instead of watching them.

He looks up and the way he rakes the bare bodies of Grimmjow's people with his eyes has black rush up Grimmjow's arms, his legs, bringing out his claws.

"Oh well; I suppose it's an occasion to examine the precise mechanisms that govern the compulsion to fornicate at the cost of your own sanity, since it doesn't seem at all to be linked to reproductive viability. Eliminate the betas," he finishes, musing tone gone brusquely indifferent. "I'll take the alphas into custody."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asuka: haha this has zero plot just cuddles and porn  
> plot: *oozes in through the cat flap*
> 
> edit: [FANART FOR MEEEEE](https://twitter.com/WulverC/status/1329255475406368768) by the amazing wulvercazz! please be warned it is Not safe for work. but then. it's a fanart for this fic. >__>


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